Authors: David Roberts
He twitched his nose and sighed. A child in a perambulator looked at him pityingly and the child’s nanny – a woman the size of a small sofa and of indeterminate age – pushed her charge out of danger with a snort of indignation. Five minutes later he found himself outside George Gilbert Scott’s undeniably impressive building, the epitome of Empire. The Foreign Office, as Scott had planned it, was designed to impress and it certainly did make a statement. Scott seemed to be saying that even the grandest potentate, the richest maharaja, the most self-regarding president was, in the presence of the Queen Empress, of little account. That was the 1870s. Sixty-five years later Queen Victoria was dead and the British Empire had been undermined by a great war which had bled it of its best young men and reduced it to near bankruptcy but the illusion of power lingered on.
Edward wondered if this magnificent building would survive the next war. Stanley Baldwin had said the bomber would always get through, seeming to imply that there was no defence against the new air force of militant Germany. It was a grim thought. As he had a few minutes to spare, he walked round to stand in front of Lutyens’ Cenotaph. With head bared and bowed, he stood for a minute or two remembering his older brother who, had he not been killed in France in 1914, would have been Duke of Mersham. He prayed fervently but without real conviction that Britain would not again be called upon to sacrifice its young men and thought particularly of his nephew Frank, now in America but soon to return home.
At last he entered the great quadrangle and made his presence known to a uniformed porter. After a muffled colloquy on an antiquated telephone, he was led by a frock-coated flunkey beneath the gilded dome, up the grand staircase and along a gallery. They arrived at an impressive door upon which the flunkey knocked. Edward entered a large room in which two female secretaries were clattering away on typewriters. A pleasant-faced young man rose from behind a desk and took Edward’s coat and hat. He then knocked on an inner door and there was a brisk shout of ‘Enter.’
The room was cavernous but Edward’s eye was immediately drawn to Sir Robert’s desk which was stacked with scarlet-and-gold despatch boxes as though he was the Foreign Secretary. A huge vase of flowers stood in the fireplace on either side of which were glass-fronted bookcases full of leather-bound tomes. For a moment he had the impression he was in one of those libraries in great country houses where the books are purely decorative and have never been removed from their shelves. There was a portrait over the fireplace of one of Sir Robert’s distinguished predecessors and two or three other portraits of men in eighteenth-and nineteenth-century dress hung elsewhere around the room. The views from the windows were of St James’s Park.
The man behind the huge desk rose and came round the side of it, his hand outstretched. ‘Lord Edward, how very good of you to come and at such short notice, too.’
Sir Robert ushered him to a small sofa at one side of the room and sat himself down opposite. He was a handsome man, six foot one, strong-jawed with a twinkle in his eye. As Edward shook his hand his first impression was of a man alert and straightforward in a profession tending to the devious. As he knew, Sir Robert was not only a diplomat but a poet, playwright and novelist. His plays had been put on in the West End with some success and a play he had written in French performed to acclaim in Paris. He was a close friend of the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, and had been his principal private secretary. He had become head of the Foreign Office in 1930 at the age of forty-nine and now, seven years later, was at his peak – assured, patrician, some would say arrogant. He had an abiding hatred of Germany – a country he knew well and whose language he spoke fluently – and a great love of France though he despaired of its politicians. As early as 1930 – before Hitler had become a menace to world peace – he had forecast that Germany would demand to become a great power with an army at least the size of Poland’s and would seek union with Austria.
‘My younger brother Nick was a friend of your brother’s at Eton,’ he was saying. ‘I remember meeting him. It was a tragedy – one of so many – his dying like that in the first weeks of the war. It was a great pain to me that I was kept from the battlefield by diplomatic work. Those of us who survived the carnage must do whatever we can to prevent a second bout but it will be a miracle if we can bring it off.’
Edward said nothing but smiled and then, fearing he might seem inane, frowned and muttered, ‘Indeed, indeed.’
Fortunately, the great man appeared not to expect an answer and went on talking. ‘I have heard a great deal about you, Lord Edward, and I was particularly struck by the way you handled that unpleasant business of Mrs Simpson’s stolen letters. Of course, I should call her the Duchess of Windsor now, though I must say it rather sticks in the craw. The point I’m driving at is that it appears you have a talent for discreet investigation and that’s just what I need now . . . a discreet investigator. You come highly recommended by Major Ferguson of Special Branch.’
Edward had come across Ferguson when he had been trying to retrieve Mrs Simpson’s letters and had then been commissioned by him to protect Lord Benyon on his recent trip to the United States.
‘You want something investigated? A crime?’
‘Not quite that. Have a cigarette? No? Well, you won’t mind if I do.’ Vansittart took a cigarette from a box on his desk and subsided once again into his chair. He was obviously finding it difficult to know where to start.
‘No crime has been committed, or at least none that I am aware of, but there has been a . . . a lapse in security.’
‘A foreign agent?’ Edward hazarded.
‘No, no, nothing like that,’ Vansittart said hurriedly. ‘Oh dear! I had better be explicit. I need hardly say that anything I tell you is confidential.’
‘Of course.’
‘Well then, have you met Mr Churchill?’
The question was so unexpected that Edward thought for a moment he had changed the subject but a glance at his face made it clear he had not. Through a cloud of smoke, Vansittart was peering at Edward and expecting a reply.
‘No, I never have.’
‘That’s good!’
Edward looked puzzled. ‘I’m afraid I’m not following you, Sir Robert.’
‘No, of course you’re not. I just wanted to be sure you were not a friend of Mr Churchill’s because that would have made the investigation very difficult . . . if not impossible.’
‘I have never met Mr Churchill,’ Edward repeated.
‘You are, however, aware of his political opinions?’
‘On foreign affairs?’
‘Yes.’
‘I know from what he writes in the newspapers that he believes Germany is building up an army and air force which we would have difficulty in withstanding in the event of a war. And, I must say, I am sure he is right.’
‘He is right in that, if in nothing much else,’ Vansittart concurred. ‘You do not have to be Talleyrand to see that Germany is a threat to the British Empire. As Mirabeau is reported to have said, “
La guerre est l’industrie nationale de la Prusse.
” The question is what to do about it. The government is rearming. We are doubling our expenditure on the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force in the next two years.’
‘I am no expert, Sir Robert, but surely one must respond, “too little, too late”?’
‘What more can we do? We are already deeply in debt to the Americans. The government wishes to postpone war, if indeed it is inevitable, by negotiating with Germany – satisfying her legitimate demands and giving her no excuse for further aggression.’
‘I understand. My friend, Lord Benyon, has explained to me how close we are to bankruptcy but, if we give ourselves more time to arm, surely that gives Germany time to do the same? A fellow passenger on my recent trip to the United States was a German Jewish aeronautical engineer. Fortunately for us the Nazis had been stupid enough to hound him out of his job.’
‘Which was?’
‘To work on the new jet engines which would make every fighter we have obsolete. However, if we allow Hitler the time, they will be built.’
‘We too have jet engines in development,’ Vansittart said, ‘but, of course, there is something in what you say. In any case, as you know, it is not my task to make policy but to implement it.’
Edward was aware that this remark was disingenuous. Sir Robert was not a man to leave policy-making to the politicians.
‘But no doubt you would like me to get to the point. It’s a delicate matter. To put it bluntly, confidential information concerning our defences – particularly our air defences – is being passed to persons unauthorized to receive it.’
‘You mean to a foreign power?’
‘No! – at least not as far as we know. The information is being passed to Mr Churchill. The figures he quotes in his newspaper articles and in debates in the House of Commons are uncannily accurate.’
‘So you think someone in the Foreign Office is giving him the ammunition to attack the government? ‘
‘We’re not absolutely certain it is coming from the Foreign Office or perhaps not
only
from the Foreign Office. You will be shown the complete list of those government officials who are authorized to receive secret information relating to our rearmament programme. These documents are circulated to twenty or twenty-five ministers and top officials and presumably they show them to their senior people though they are not supposed to.’
‘I see. So, if I understand you, one or more of these people is passing secrets concerning our rearmament – facts and figures – to Mr Churchill so he can embarrass the government?’
‘That’s correct.’
‘But what would be that person’s motive? Money?’
‘Probably not. We do not believe that Mr Churchill has ever given any reward for information. I think it is more likely to be from a misguided idea that alarming the British public in this way is patriotic. Of course, nothing Mr Churchill can say or do can alter the situation. As I said to you, we are increasing our armed forces very rapidly – as rapidly as our financial position allows.’
‘And is Mr Churchill actuated by a patriotic desire to prepare Britain for the coming conflict or merely to promote himself?’
‘Ah, well! There’s the question. Personally, I think he is a genuine patriot but he does enjoy irritating his former colleagues. He had hoped to be taken back into government and he may be trying to make such a nuisance of himself that the PM prefers to have him on board rather than rocking the boat from outside. But that’s by the by. Whatever his motives, the situation cannot be allowed to continue.’
‘I have always admired his energy and determination but after Gallipoli . . .’
‘Quite! Though, it has to be said, that fiasco was not entirely Mr Churchill’s fault.’
‘But he bears the responsibility,’ Edward persisted.
‘He does,’ Sir Robert agreed, getting up from his chair. ‘And he did the honourable thing and resigned. Joined his regiment and fought at the front. I admire him for that. As for Gallipoli, he was impatient . . . too impatient. The war in France was bogged down in trench warfare. He was prepared to risk anything to find a short cut to victory. He was a young man with the world’s mightiest fleet at his disposal. He was a personal friend of Mr Asquith and could count on the unstinting support the British people always give their navy. He threw all these gifts away in sheer headstrong recklessness. He lost himself trying a short cut in unfamiliar territory and lost others with him. You know, Lord Edward, there is a broad gulf between the man of talent and the man of genius. One may perhaps feel that at the present time, when the empire is going through a most terrible economic crisis and faces the appalling prospect of another war, Mr Churchill’s recklessness may once again imperil us. His facile phrases and unbalanced enthusiams are the last thing we need.’
Vansittart’s bitterness surprised Edward. He must be seriously worried to give vent to his feelings so unrestrainedly. Vansittart, perhaps sensing he had spoken too freely, ceased his pacing and sat down again opposite Edward.
‘Anyway, it is intolerable that top secret documents should be seen by unauthorized people, whatever their motive,’ he ended lamely.
‘I see. So you want me to go and see Mr Churchill and ask him who is giving him this information? I cannot believe I would be successful.’
‘You are a neutral figure – if I may put it that way, Lord Edward. I agree Mr Churchill is unlikely to reveal his sources of information but you can at least warn him that we are aware of what is happening and when we do find our weak link . . . but there is another way of tackling the problem. When you receive the full list of those who have legitimate access to the figures Mr Churchill quotes so authoritatively, you can interview each of them. There may be fewer than a score – thirty at the most.’
‘I will have to have some letter of authorization if I am to get anywhere.’
‘That goes without saying,’ Vansittart said with relief, making the assumption that Edward had agreed to undertake the investigation. ‘You will be sworn in as an officer in Special Branch. You will have all the authority you need, I can promise you. However, the investigation must be most discreet. No word of our anxiety must reach the newspapers or we shall be pilloried. You understand?’
‘I do, Sir Robert. And I report direct to you?’
‘Myself or Major Ferguson. The fewer people who have to know about this the better. And, by the way, commit nothing to paper. Any report you make should be verbal. We don’t want any memorandum from you being reprinted in one of Lord Weaver’s rags, do we?’
That seemed to Edward to be a warning. Vansittart must know of his friendship with the owner of the
New Gazette
and other newspapers with little love for the government.
‘There is nothing else you can tell me? You have no suspicions yourself as to who may be talking to Mr Churchill? Presumably Major Ferguson must have made some preliminary investigation.’
‘That is true,’ Sir Robert said, rising to his feet to indicate the interview was at an end. ‘He had a hint that one of my people, Charles Westmacott, a junior employee in Desmond Lyall’s section, might have – how shall I put it? – a weakness for Mr Churchill. Major Ferguson made an appointment to see him.’