Churchill's Hour (19 page)

‘You're in spirited form, Winston,' Harriman said.

‘Never better.' He took the other man's arm as they walked, heads bent, almost conspiratorially, towards the waiting cars. ‘I have news, Averell, most profound news. The President has invited me to meet with him. I sail in two weeks' time. I hope you will accompany me.'

‘That's fantastic. Face to face. Things'll move so much more quickly.'

‘We few, we happy few, we band of brothers!'

‘But what's all that about Americans being at the sharp end?'

‘Joined in battle. One cause, one crusade!'

Harriman was silent for a moment. ‘Things must've moved fast while I was away.'

‘Germany has hurled itself upon Russia, and the dogs of Japan snarl ever more savagely, creeping behind our backs. Half of all mankind is now engaged in this struggle, Averell, and the President knows that America cannot stand aside.'

‘No one would be happier than I about that, but…War? You seriously think he intends to declare war?'

‘Why else would he invite me to travel so far?'

Harriman knew Roosevelt. He knew the President had an extraordinary ability to leave all those in his company with the impression that he was entirely at one with them and that their cause had his full enthusiasm. But Roosevelt was not a man of enthusiasms. He was a man who played his cards so close to his chest that he had trouble changing his shirt, yet now he was offering a summit meeting. Churchill might have to travel a great distance, but if it implied war, then the President had already travelled much further.

‘Hell, things
have
moved fast,' Harriman repeated. Over their heads thundered a Flying Fortress—a B-17, fresh from the factories of Boeing in North America, its four radial piston engines straining and making the ground shudder beneath their feet. To one side stood several brand new Liberators—B-24s. They looked ungainly without their camouflage, but soon they would be painted up, and thirty thousand feet above Berlin. At last, it seemed, things were on the move.

‘There's so much to do, so little time to do it, Averell. I'll need every moment of your time if we are to maximize the benefits of my meeting with the President.' From the inside pocket of his jacket the Prime Minister withdrew an envelope. It wasn't sealed. ‘I dictated a memorandum for you this morning about the summit. It's entirely current and,
of course, in the highest degree confidential. We shall discuss it this weekend at Chequers.' He stopped as they reached the door of their car and took the American by the sleeve. ‘Averell, you'll forgive a little pedantry, I trust, but I must ask you to take the greatest care of such personal notes. Before you return to London, destroy it. By fire.'

‘It'll go straight into my case, Winston. I never leave it unlocked.' He tapped the stiff leather bag that swung at his side.

‘And—forgive me—the key?'

‘On a chain—and on my belt.' Harriman produced a small bunch of keys from his pocket. ‘Don't worry, Winston, they'd have to rip my clothes from my body before they could get to it.'

‘Then I am deeply reassured.' He ushered his guest into the back of the car. ‘Come. Chequers calls. As does the family. They are all gathered, waiting to kill the fatted calf in your honour…'

‘You didn't write,' she whispered.

‘I thought we were…going to let things cool off. Anyway, I was with your husband. It didn't seem right.'

‘It feels so very strange, you being with Randolph.'

‘I kept worrying that I would get drunk and say something.'

‘Did you?'

‘No. I let him do most of the drinking—and talking. I don't think he suspects.'

‘He wrote to me. About you.'

‘What?'

‘Sang your praises. Said you were charming, that you spoke delightfully of me.'

‘You have no idea how miserable that makes me feel.'

‘He even said he thought he had a serious rival in you.'

‘He knows…?'

‘Nothing. I think he genuinely likes you.'

‘Damn. That doesn't make for a simple life.'

‘I genuinely like you, too.'

‘Which makes life about as unsimple as it gets.'

For a moment she wondered whether she should tell him about her conversation with Winston, but the idea quickly evaporated. He was having enough difficulty with his scruples; if he had to face Winston in a state of anything other than blithe ignorance it would only make his conscience toll all the louder.

‘What should we do?' she asked.

‘Do?'

‘Yes, do.'

‘What do you think, Pam?'

She considered the options for a while. The night was dark, sultry. An owl called from somewhere in the distance. In another part of the house the hinges
of an ancient window complained as it was closed. A clock chimed three.

‘Averell, it took a lot of gentle persuasion for Sawyers to put me in this room.'

‘Why did you want to change?'

‘I told him I preferred the view. Truth is, this bed makes so much less noise.'

‘Ah.'

‘So, you silly goose,' she whispered in his ear, ‘I'll let you decide.'

The old house creaked as it settled down for the night. It gave the maid a little cover. For the rest, she would have to rely on the lateness of the hour and the alcohol they had all consumed on their way to bed. She crept in stockinged feet down the corridor, avoiding floorboards she knew to be loose, until she had come to the room assigned to Harriman. She paused outside the room, listening carefully for many moments before she pulled at the handle. The door gave way silently on hinges that she had recently and most meticulously oiled.

She was gone some time. When at last she reappeared, she retraced her footsteps and vanished up the staircase that led to the servants' quarters on the floor above. She was as silent as a moonbeam, offering nothing more than the briefest passing shadow.

At the far end of the corridor, from behind a door that had been no more than an inch ajar, there crept the subdued glow of a cigar. Then, with the gentle click of the latch, it was gone.

In late July the Japanese moved south, just as Churchill had feared. Unopposed, they marched into Saigon, the capital of French Indo-China. They were now a thousand miles nearer the heart of Britain's Far Eastern Empire.

There were still those who thought the Japanese might turn and declare war on Russia, but with every pace the armies of Nippon took down the spine of Indo-China, that possibility grew more feeble.

There was another factor compelling them south. Roosevelt had wanted to punish the Japanese for moving their troops into Indo-China and warn them to advance no further. So he had decided to freeze all Japanese assets in the United States. Churchill, ever eager to encourage the American President, did the same. It seemed an initiative that was tough, unambiguous and above all united, bringing the two English-speaking nations together.

Yet it was a policy that contained a terrible sting in its tail. ‘Do as we demand.' It was in effect a claim
to racial superiority and Anglo-Saxon ascendancy, a point which Churchill knew would not be lost on refined Japanese sensibilities. It would throw them into a fury. It would also cut them off from the materials they required to wage war—most importantly oil. It would force them to decide.

Either she could back off, withdraw from Indo-China, lose face, renounce her own claim to empire and humiliate herself before the white man. Or she would have to assert herself and grab the resources she needed—in other words, make more war.

No one knew what they would do—the Japanese didn't seem to know themselves, and Roosevelt thought this uncertainty was an excellent sign. It suggested that the Japanese were being forced to think again, to find another way. But if they didn't, it threatened disaster. The armies of the Rising Sun stationed in Indo-China formed a great claw around the kingdom of Thailand. It would be their next target. And once they were in Thailand, they only had to fall out of bed and they would land upon the British territories of Malaya, Burma and Singapore—territories which, Churchill knew, he could not defend, not alone. The United States had to come into the war, whether they liked it or not.

When she found him he was looking at the North Star, like a lone traveller trying to find his bearings.
Churchill had been avoiding her—not ignoring her completely, but always finding someone else to talk with and something else to concentrate on whenever she came near. It wasn't difficult for him to find an excuse—the summit occupied all their minds and waking moments.

‘Papa.'

He stirred, but did not look round. The scent of jasmine and sweet Havana hung between them.

‘We must talk, Papa.'

She came closer, her footsteps gliding across the weathered York-stone paving. Still he did not move, a silhouette against the night sky. When at last he spoke, it was with reluctance.

‘I can never understand why young people find marriage such a problem,' he began. ‘In my day, all you needed was champagne, a box of chocolates and a double bed. You got on with it and sorted things out.'

‘I wish I could have been as happy as you and Mama.'

‘Happiness—now there's the problem. Everybody rushing around like March hares looking for happiness. But marriage isn't about being happy. It's about rubbing along. Why, if Clemmie had demanded happiness she'd have upped and left me years ago. Anyway, how on earth could you have expected to be happy with Randolph? Even I don't like him at times.'

‘Averell says he likes him.'

‘Is that what he said? But what else would he say? He's a diplomat.'

She was at his elbow. She put her hand on it; he didn't object.

Something else he said, Papa.'

Still he looked at the star and not at her.

‘He said he thought you were expecting too much from Roosevelt. That the President is the sort of man who prefers making conversation to making war.'

‘Don't we all?'

‘Averell wants America in this war, Papa. Even if San Francisco has to be bombed to make it happen.'

‘Now that is
not
very diplomatic of him,' Churchill said testily, still scoring points.

‘But he's afraid. He thinks that the summit won't reach nearly high enough for you.'

‘Why are you telling me this?' he asked, his voice soaked with unease.

‘Because I thought you needed to know. My problems with Randolph don't change my loyalties towards you.'

‘Loyal to the father, but not to the son. It's an awkward balance to attempt.'

‘Loyalty is a two-way affair, Papa, particularly between husband and wife.' Her tone was sharper.

‘Are you suggesting that Randolph is not loyal to you?'

‘Oh, in his way,' she replied, unable to hide an
edge of contempt. ‘But Randy has an unfortunate habit of banging his brothel doors ever so loud. I find the noise keeps me awake at night.'

‘It would seem that is not the only thing that keeps you awake at night!' he snapped in retaliation.

‘Oh, Papa, don't let's argue. I'm only trying to help.'

‘Help? Somehow I suspect that history will be churlish and not smile upon your affair with Averell as being motivated by a desire to help the war effort.'

It was a cruel, unfair jibe, but he was torn inside about her affair with Harriman. He felt soaked in guilt every time he thought of it. So he was taking it out on Pamela.

‘Oh, Pamela, why must you be so headstrong?' he asked, trying to evade his own complicity. ‘Why can't you wait until Randolph gets home, be more patient?'

She drew back, affronted. ‘Why can't I be patient? Perhaps it's because I've spent so much time in the Churchill family that I have become like them.'

She was angry, and turned to go. The night had suddenly become chilly, the heavy scent of honeysuckle and cigar overpowering.

‘I was only trying to help you, Papa,' she repeated, her voice full of hurt.

He said nothing—didn't know what to say.

‘Goodnight, Papa.'

Only then did he turn.

‘Pamela!'

But already she was gone.

‘The Presence', as he was sometimes known to his staff, had many manifestations: sombre, triumphant, emotional, abusive, always argumentative, sometimes vulgar. He was mercurial and melodramatic, and rarely restrained. While he waited for Operation Riviera—his meeting with Roosevelt—Churchill grew ever more unpredictable.

He paced the lawns, ate for England, bellowed from his bath, worked his staff to exhaustion. ‘I shall need two women tonight!' he would roar as he prepared to dictate memoranda and instructions until the first light of dawn had begun to creep into the sky. The relentlessness never flagged, even at Chequers. In the evenings he would skip around the Great Hall, cat in hand, twirling to the music of the gramophone, barking out instructions to a servant or secretary, pausing at the fireplace to test whether some overpitched phrase might take wing and fly, then dance another lap. He drove himself—and others—on and on. And, in his desire to push history around, he also grew more arrogant.

He continued to be acerbic towards the military, and to their face. He demanded initiatives and victories, while they seemed always to argue for
delay. He never took time to understand why the tanks he sent them got stuck up to their axles in the sand or why the new American bombers spent more time on training flights than bombing runs. He always insisted there was a better way—his way.

He could be pitiless. He attacked the dead and defenceless Chamberlain, calling him ‘the narrowest, most ignorant, most ungenerous of men', even as he finished off the last drops of the man's hock. He denounced the French through mouthfuls of champagne. He reserved the worst of his temper for the Russians, but not to their face. He listened patiently to the demands of their ambassador, Maisky, and sent his new ally away laden with praise and promises, yet once the door had closed the prime ministerial expletives reached a pitch that would have done justice to a Liverpool docker. Diplomacy was, of necessity, a game of two hands.

Only the Americans escaped his venom.

The maelstrom of his emotions threatened to overwhelm him. Late one evening at Chequers he decided that he wanted to watch his film about Nelson and Emma Hamilton once more. For Churchill, their story of deliverance had become a creed, a well of inspiration and reassurance from which he drank ever more greedily. Yet the crew with the projector equipment had already left. When this was discovered, he lost all sense of proportion.
He became like a child deprived of a favourite toy, stamping, wild-eyed, shorn of all reason. He demanded that the police set up a roadblock on the route to London so that the crew could be stopped and turned around. When still they did not arrive, his temper was volcanic.

To those who knew him best and loved him, such behaviour was untypical; to many others, it seemed more like a hardening of Churchill's emotional arteries. One of these was Beatrice, the wife of the Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden.

‘Damn the man!' she muttered as the bedside telephone clattered into life. ‘Is he drunk again?'

With a sigh, her husband switched on the bedside light and rubbed his eyes.

‘It's almost three o'clock,' she complained.

‘There is a war on, my dear,' Eden replied, rubbing his eyes.

‘Even the Germans have to sleep!'

Eden was an elegant man, handsome, well educated, much experienced, a man of considerable personal and political courage. He had fought the first war, foreseen the second war, and had resigned as Neville Chamberlain's Foreign Secretary in protest at Chamberlain's meddling. It was inevitable that he should have been recalled by Churchill, and many saw him as Churchill's natural successor. He was a man of exceptional talents yet also of considerable inner turbulence. In spite of an exceptional war
record, some saw the uncertainty as a lack of fibre; his wife was one.

Eden reached for the phone, but it did not still his wife.

‘Isn't it enough that we have to put up with his interminable speechifying—without this?'

‘I suspect it's about the Roosevelt thing.'

‘Hah! His moment in the limelight. And I notice he intends to grab it all for himself and leave you behind, Anthony. All the others, too, except for Beaverbrook. Why is Max going to meet the President and not you? You're the Foreign Secretary, for pity's sake. You should insist.'

But already he wasn't listening, his attentions concentrated on the telephone. It did nothing to deter her.

‘He treats you like a naughty schoolchild. Bellows at you constantly. Never trusts you an inch. You're not a Foreign Secretary, Anthony, you're nothing but an errand boy.'

Eden turned, covering the mouthpiece. ‘He told me the other day he regarded me as his son,' he whispered, trying to deflect the scorn.

‘His son? But he's loathsome!'

He went back to the telephone while she proceeded to beat her pillow with frustration. When he finally put the phone down, she turned on him, as she had done so many times during their marriage.

‘I've supported you throughout your political career, Anthony. I've been a loyal and devoted wife.' They both knew that hadn't been the case, but for the moment it wasn't the issue. ‘I will not stand by and watch you publicly humiliated.'

‘I don't see it that way.'

‘No? Then there are many others who do. There are mutterings everywhere about Winston, about his follies, his rudeness. His refusal to listen to anyone else. Least of all to you.'

Eden couldn't argue the point. It was no longer possible to open a newspaper without finding complaints—not outright attacks, but an incessant dribble of grumbles and grievances of a kind that would never have appeared a year ago. There were even gentle hints that Churchill should be thinking about the right time to make way for a younger successor—and the name that kept coming to the fore was that of Anthony Eden. Was that why he had been excluded from the list of those asked to attend the summit? Perhaps his wife had a point.

‘So what did he have to say?' she asked.

‘It wasn't Winston. It was one of the aides.'

‘He doesn't even have the decency to do his own dirty work?'

‘They're sending round a paper. Apparently it requires immediate attention.'

‘So you will get up from our bed and answer the
door in the middle of the night to do his bidding. As you always damned well do.'

‘He is the Prime Minister, Beatrice.'

‘Yes. As once I had hoped you might be.' Her words were drenched with personal disappointment and spite.

She rose from the bed.

‘I am going to the guest room, Anthony. I don't propose to be disturbed again tonight. Or any night. Not by Winston Churchill.'

She left the bedroom. And such was the state of their marriage that she never returned.

When finally he left, on Sunday the third of August aboard a special train, he did so with a retinue fit for a medieval king—generals, admirals, air chief marshals, diplomats and doctors, press men, policemen, secretaries, servants, and, of course, the ubiquitous Sawyers. But no ministers, not even Max Beaverbrook, who was travelling separately.

The train took them to Scotland, pausing in Inverness to pick up twelve brace of grouse, and so laden they proceeded by lifeboat and destroyer to Scapa Flow where, riding on a fretful sea, they found the ship that would take them to their rendezvous. The
Prince of Wales.
The ship that had fought with the
Hood
, watched her die, fired the shells that had struck and fatally slowed the
Bismarck
, and which
still bore the scars of the encounter. She was one of the finest warriors afloat. The British wanted to make an impression.

It was early on the first full day of their voyage, a day of gales and grey turbulence, that they received a message marked Most Urgent. The Germans had found out. Transozean Wireless, the mouthpiece of the Propaganda Ministry in Berlin, was already broadcasting the news that Churchill and Roosevelt were to meet. Somehow, the security surrounding the summit had been blown to pieces.