Heart of War (87 page)

Lady Randolph said hesitantly, ‘There is another alternative, Winston … a negotiated peace. When you read the terrible casualty lists you have to think that perhaps Benjamin Franklin was right – there never was a good war or a bad peace.'

Churchill wagged his finger at his mother, ‘Your American ancestors would not have said that in 1776, Mother! Franklin himself was not saying it a few years later. Were we English to say it, a century ago, faced by the monstrous tyranny of Bonaparte? … I know Russell, and some of the other leaders of the pacifist movement … I believe he is an honest man, not self-serving, certainly possessed of great moral courage … but I think he is wrong, disastrously wrong. The first victims of any such peace – for make no mistake, there would be victims – would be such independent, brilliant spirits as himself. He can only live in the broad tolerant bosom of this nation, where he is no more than a tick, that has to be scratched at now and then.' He rose to his feet, ‘I have to make a speech in the House about the production of tanks. The bill here's paid, of course.' He looked suddenly hard at Harry – ‘Did I not read that a Miss Alice Rowland was severely hurt in the Hedlington factory explosion?'

‘My daughter,' Harry said. ‘She lost a leg.'

‘My dear sir, I am sorry. She has suffered for her country as surely as a soldier wounded in the trenches. Please give her my deepest condolences … and I wish I could say that I intend to punish whoever was responsible for causing that explosion, but I can not … he is beyond my reach.'

‘Do you know, yet?' Harry asked.

Churchill nodded. ‘I had the report of the inspector last month. The manager had been lax in enforcing the safety regulations. Some of the women were wearing earrings, improper ornaments, even ordinary shoes … But he was
killed … I must go.' He pecked his mother on the cheek, kissed Lady Warwick's hand, and went out.

Poor Bob, Harry thought. He'd been a good foreman, but managing was a different matter. It was a tragic irony, if what Churchill said was true, that Bob Stratton should have been in the end responsible for Alice's mutilation, when Bob and Jane had always been willing to do anything for her – certainly their favourite among his children.

Meanwhile, here he was, in a secluded dining room with two of the most beautiful women in England. Three, indeed, for lunching at a table for two, her back to them, was Lillie Langtry, with a plump theatrical man who looked like an impresario – or her agent, perhaps. All three ladies were well into middle age by now, Daisy and Lillie getting a little plump … but two of them had certainly been the late King's mistresses, and Jennie may well have been … some of Daisy's and Lillie's clandestine meetings with him had taken place in this very room, reached by those narrow side stairs. He ought to be able to tell someone about this, and have them hanging on every word … but now, who would be interested?

Harry Rowland sat at dinner, at home, with his two elder sons and their wives.

‘How's Alice?' Richard asked his father. ‘Susan saw her a week ago, and she seemed depressed.'

‘She still isn't quite over the drug withdrawal, the doctor says,' Harry said. ‘But I think it's mainly impatience. She wants so badly to get her artificial leg, so that she can start learning to walk with it. And she's started a correspondence course in bookkeeping. She's going to work for you at Hedlington Aircraft, isn't she?'

Richard said, ‘Yes. We have a good secretary, but we need a specialist bookkeeper, too, the way we are expanding. The first production Buffalo is going to fly within six months, test models earlier …'

‘Is that the one that's going to drop bombs on Berlin?' John asked.

Richard said, ‘Yes. Probably with J & G engines. That's Jones & Gatewood, a firm in Connecticut which Stephen Merritt's bank bought out in the spring, and have converted to making engines exclusively for aircraft … so far all air-cooled radials – radials, not rotaries. We're expecting a dozen
next month for trials and fitting to the Buffalo air frame … Oh, by the way, you know that motor cycle Bob Stratton was working on, to break the world's 1000cc and all comers' speed record? We flew it to France, to Frank Stratton, in a Leopard that we were delivering to the R.F.C. He's going to work on it, I imagine.'

‘He'll break the record, then,' Harry said. ‘He's a better man with engines even than Bob was.'

Louise Rowland, impatient at the men's talk of machines and engines, asked her father-in-law, ‘How's Mrs Stallings doing as housekeeper?'

‘Very well,' Harry said. ‘She can't do as much cooking as she used to, of course, but I'm not here most of the week so it works out all right.'

He drank some wine, looking round from his position at the head of the table. Susan and Louise sat at his sides, John and Richard beyond them. Dinner was nearly over, and he saw Susan glancing at Louise, to catch her eye. He said, ‘Don't leave us, ladies, I want to talk to all of you. This war is not just a men's affair, as we have all learned, to our cost … The Prime Minister has asked me and two other back benchers to go to France and look over the situation there. I shall do my best to see Quentin, Guy, Boy, Laurence – and Naomi – but can't guarantee that I will have the time, or the opportunity … Now, I want your frank opinions … What do you think of our war policy?'

No one spoke for a time, then Louise said, ‘We must beat the Germans in France. If we try to win by other means, we'll only have to face them again, later. That's what Boy said when he was home last.'

Harry looked at John, whose face was sad and worried. John said, ‘I think we ought to state our war aims, and ask the Germans to state theirs … declare an armistice, one-sided if necessary … appoint Commissioners for both sides to hammer out some sort of compromise between us…'

Richard said, ‘The stated war aims – and war claims – are going to be exaggerated. There'll never be an agreement.'

‘But there won't be any slaughter while we argue. And once it stops, no one will have the nerve to start it again.'

‘Leaving us just where we happen to be now – Alsace, Lorraine, and large parts of northern France in German hands, Rumania occupied, Serbia torn to pieces … All that
will lead to another war, with still more horrible weapons, in twenty or thirty years.'

‘Perhaps,' John said doggedly, ‘but anything's better than what's happening now.'

Harry looked at Susan, ‘You haven't spoken yet. What do you think?'

Susan said, ‘I know it's horrible … but I think we'd better get it over with. I'm a Republican, but I think Mr Wilson was right – we must make the world safe for democracy, at whatever cost.'

Richard said, ‘I don't think the trouble is in France, Father. It's at home – the unions sticking to peacetime restrictive practices … bad procurement procedures by management … No one thinks big enough. I'm ready to make five hundred four-engined bombers by next autumn, with a radius of action of 650 miles … They'd end the war in a month! But 30 bombers won't, nor yet 40.'

John said, ‘It isn't only the slaughter … It's the brutalization, the degradation of our society … Bertrand Russell was telling us about walking on the South Downs, and afterward going into Lewes to catch a train back to London, and the station being full of soldiers, all drunk, mostly with prostitutes, everyone despairing, drunk, mad … because they were going back to France.'

Louise said sharply, ‘At least they
were
going back, while Mr Russell – the aristocratic philosopher looking down his nose at the brutal and licentious protectors of his freedom – wasn't going back to France, just back to a warm bed with Lady Ottoline Morrell or Colette.'

They were all silent, a little shocked by the vehemence of Louise's outburst. Louise added, more quietly, ‘Men who fight in France are to be forgiven their excesses, not sneered at by aristocratic cowards.'

Harry said gently, ‘Perhaps, my dear Louise, we must also forgive the excesses of those who are working, after all, for peace. Even Winston Churchill, who positively revels in war – not the killing, but the sense of purpose, the energy, the
doing
– is willing to admit the nobility of purpose of such as Bertrand Russell, Clifford Allen, and their followers.'

Louise said, ‘You're right, Father … I'm sorry, but …'

Harry interrupted – ‘Let's get back to the subject… my subject, at any rate … What do you think of Field Marshal Haig?'

Again it was Louise who spoke first – ‘I think he's the best man we have. The soldiers trust him … though Boy didn't think much of some of the other generals, under him … so we must trust him, too.'

Richard said, ‘I agree, on the whole. I don't think anyone else could do better. He'll see us through.'

Susan said, ‘I am not sure. If it's true that many of the subordinate generals are poor, why doesn't Field Marshal Haig replace them? Who else can do it, or should?'

Harry thought, I am no forrader than I was after listening to Churchill and Lloyd George. Reading Lord Northcliffe's newspapers didn't help, either. He'd have to make up his mind for himself. He said, ‘Ring the bell, please, John, and we'll go through and have our coffee in the drawing room.'

But at that moment old Parrish came into the room, bent beside Harry's chair, and muttered, ‘Telephone, for you, sir.'

‘Who is it?'

‘A Mrs Bodding,' Parrish said.

Harry had never heard of her; but left the dining room with an apology and went to the telephone, in the hall. He put the receiver to his ear and said, ‘Harry Rowland speaking.'

The voice at the other end was broad Woman of Kent, speaking unhurriedly, ‘Mister Rowland, I'm Mrs Bodding, the midwife in Beighton. Mrs Merritt's waters has broke and she's in bed now.'

‘What, what?' Harry said excitedly. He knew that Stella's baby was due – a few days overdue, in fact – but the press of national problems had pushed it to the back of his mind. ‘Has labour started yet?'

‘Yes, sir. But the pains are still over a quarter of an hour apart. I've called on the telephone to Dr Kimball, but I don't think the baby will come quickly, mind. With first ones it usually takes longer.'

‘Good, good,' Harry said. ‘Tell Dr Kimball to call me when he arrives, please.'

‘That I will, sir.'

Harry waited in his library, standing, the door open, listening to old Parrish's discreet footsteps approaching down the hall, accompanied by the ponderous creaking of another, heavier, more powerful man, his boots smacking down with purpose.
Their shadows fell across the door, and Parrish said, ‘Mr William Hoggin, sir.'

‘Come in, Hoggin,' Harry said. ‘Take a seat. I'll stand, if you don't mind. Do enough sitting in London. Wear out the seat of my trousers.'

‘Ha, ha!' Hoggin laughed dutifully.

‘Well, what can I do for you?' Harry asked. Hoggin was an important man in Hedlington now – the richest man in the town and its chief benefactor; but that didn't mean he had to like him, or put up with his company for longer than was necessary.

Hoggin sat forward on the edge of his chair … that's where Richard was sitting the day I told him I was not going to retire, at the beginning of the war, Harry thought. Hoggin said, ‘We – myself and the other directors of H.U.S.L. – Hoggin's Universal Stores Limited – would like you to join us on the board, Mr Rowland.'

Harry made to speak but Hoggin raised a thick, hairy-backed hand – ‘'Ear me out, Mr Rowland … We have twenty-four H.U.S.L. shops now in hoperation. By the end of the next year our goal is one hundred … and we'll have them. Our business is in the millions now. Next year it'll be in the tens of millions – 'undreds, perhaps. As soon as the war's over, it'll grow more, and quicker.'

‘What about competition?' Harry asked.

Hoggin said, ‘We're going to have it, Mr Rowland. We have some now. But we're going to beat it. If anyone's going to go under, it ain't going to be Bill Hoggin … nor his H.U.S.L. We pay directors well, Mr Rowland … not only with money but with options to buy common shares at par, when they're selling for three and four times par on the Stock Exchange.'

Harry considered. He was not averse to earning some more money. Much of it would be taxed, in any case, to pay for the war. But how much time would he be able to spare for his duties as director? What did Hoggin want him for, anyway? Well, that was easy. An M.P. was always a good ally to have for a man like Hoggin. He wondered how Hoggin had managed, first, to get himself appointed as an expert adviser to a committee primarily looking into the operations of such as he; and then steered the committee into agreeing to dissolve itself, with self-congratulations all round. Swanwick
had been in the Lords team on that committee … which might have had something to do with it, as he was now Chairman of H.U.S.L.

To Hoggin he said finally, ‘Your proposal flatters me, Mr Hoggin, and interests me, I confess … but I must refuse it. I do not have the time to serve on your board.'

‘That don't matter,' Hoggin said eagerly. ‘Lord Swanwick hardly ever turns up. It's just 'is name we want, see.'

‘And that's all you want of me?' Harry said with a touch of acid.

‘Oh now, Mr Rowland, his Lordship's not a business man, now, is he? But you are … just your advice, whenever you want to give it. You'll be worth your keep, don't you fear.'

Harry said, again, ‘I'm sorry, I must refuse. But I wish you all prosperity and further success. As a constituent of mine, your interests will always be my concern.'

Hoggin stood up and said, ‘One thing more, Mr Rowland. I made a considerable contribution to Mr Lloyd George early this year – a hundred thousand quid, it was …' Ah, Harry thought, here's the milk in the coconut. Hoggin continued, ‘I'm ready to give him some more. 'Ow could I get him to accept it … from my own hands, like?'