WC02 - Never Surrender (3 page)

"Ah, but we seem destined to fight on so many fronts," the Minister added, his eyes wandering northward across the gravel stretches of Horse Guards Parade to the white sandstone of the Admiralty building beyond. 'Rab' Butler was the second most senior Minister in the Foreign Office, a man of considerable intellectual powers whose career had embraced both ambition and Neville Chamberlain. He was talked about as a future leader. Inevitably it made him enemies, and perhaps the most significant of all his enemies was the man across the way in the Admiralty a man who, less than an hour ago, had taken the King's commission to become the new Prime Minister.

"They say he cannot last. That he will soon be gone. Even that Neville may be back," Channon suggested.

"To save us all from disaster," Butler intoned.

"From the Luftwaffe."

"From Mr. Churchill," Butler corrected.

"Such a vulgar man," Channon muttered, replenishing their glasses.

Butler's lips drooped in distaste. He had extraordinary lips, weak, as though constructed of wax that had strayed too near the flame and been melted. His eyes also drooped. It gave him an air of ingrained disapproval.

"But Churchill's a man with experience of war," Colville reminded them.

"There is nothing to be gained either from war or from Winston Churchill," the Minister all but spat. "The fate of our country has been placed in the hands of the greatest political adventurer of modern times. A half-breed American whose entire life has been littered with failures for which other people have paid."

"And now poor Neville."

A pause.

"What will you do, Jock?" Channon asked the younger man.

"I think I might apply for a transfer to the armed services. The R.A.F, perhaps." He seemed unaware of his implied rebuke to Butler. If war was not an answer, what was to be the point of fighting it? But the Minister had more advice to offer.

"No. Wait, Jock. Don't draw stumps just yet. This game isn't over. Let Winston have his day dabbling at war. And when he falters, and then fails, as he always has, the country will need men like us. More than ever."

"And after Winston?"

"Pray that it will be an Englishman. Perhaps Neville once more. And if not him, then Halifax. But better Neville."

The sun was almost set, its embers sprinkled wide across the spires and cupolas around them. The end of more than just another day. Chips raised his glass.

"Then, to the King over the Water."

"To Neville," Butler agreed.

"And may God send us victorious," Colville whispered, finishing the last of his warm champagne.

"So how was he?"

Winston Churchill looked up from the letter he was writing to inspect the man who had just burst in upon him. A pall of cigar smoke hovered across the room in the Admiralty.

"His Majesty was as ever charming. A little awkward, perhaps. Dressed in his uniform as Admiral of the Fleet."

Unbidden, his visitor helped himself to a large whisky from the tray that sat beside the Prime Minister. The splash of soda was brief, no more than a gesture.

"You know," Churchill continued, "I do believe His Majesty would willingly give up all the splendours and circumstances of his role in order to return to the duties of his career in the navy."

"He's out of his depth."

"No, I think more out of his experience," Churchill growled. "Rather like us all at this moment." He thrust his own empty glass in the direction of his visitor, silently demanding it be refilled. As on almost every occasion in the seventeen years since they had met, Brendan Bracken complied with his older friend's wishes. Bracken was a man often derided as an outrageous fantasist by those who knew him slightly, and no one could claim to know him well, not even Churchill. But for all his faults and legendary confrontations with the truth, he had remained loyal to Churchill when more respectable political colleagues had deserted him. All his life Churchill had been a man of few friends, and this friend he valued more than most.

"Still, must have been awkward for you. For both of you, given the past," Bracken continued.

Ah, the past .. . Churchill wanted to believe that all his past life had been but a preparation for the trial that lay ahead, yet in truth it had been a lifetime of uneasy adventures thrown together with outright failures. During the last war, for instance, he had been hurled from office not simply resigned as his father had done before him, but thrown out by those who thought him inadequate for the job. Many of them had still not changed their minds, the King included. No, it wasn't success that had brought him here, only the still more monumental failures of others. Churchill looked up once more from his blotter. "He covered it with a little joke. Asked me if I knew why he had summoned me. I replied that I simply couldn't imagine. So he offered me a cigar and asked me to form a government. Of which, I suppose, you expect to be a member. Along with many others."

"The joy of it!" Bracken threw his arms around in excitement. "After all these years, the chance to even the score. To do unto others .. He clapped his hands. "You know, I've just been over to Downing Street. Thought I'd take a look. Went by the back gate into the secretaries' rooms. Rushing around bundling everything into sacks and waste-paper baskets, they were, even had a fire roaring in one of the grates. Several in tears. It was as though the enemy had arrived."

"You don't understand, Brendan: in their eyes, he has."

Bracken lit himself a cigar using a petrol lighter that threw an immense flame, adding to the aerial confusion. "So who is to be in this government of ours?"

"My War Cabinet," Churchill responded, 'will consist of four men, apart from myself." He cleared his throat as if making an official proclamation. "There will be Mr. Attlee and Mr. Greenwood from the Labour Party."

Bracken shifted uneasily in his chair.

"Lord Halifax."

An eyebrow arched in disapproval.

"And Mr. Neville Chamberlain."

Bracken gasped, momentarily brought to silence. "You cannot be serious."

"In most deadly earnest. Our lives may depend upon it."

"But .. ." Suddenly the energy was upon him once more, his body contorting in exasperation. "They're the four most bloody-minded men in the country. Two socialists with whom you've got nothing in common, the former Prime Minister who's devoted most of his limited talents to keeping you at the outer edge of the universe, and .. ." He wondered for a moment how best to sum up Edward Halifax, Churchill's chief rival for the post. "And an Old Etonian."

"You're right." Churchill smiled. Throughout all the years of drought Bracken had had an unquenchable talent for making him smile. "You are absolutely right. We need more Harrovians."

"Seriously, Winston, how can you include Chamberlain after everything that's happened?"

"Can't you see, Brendan, it's because of everything that has happened that I must embrace him? He is still the leader of the majority party in the House of Commons, and if I am to build a truly national government I must include him as well as the socialists." He picked up his pen and resumed his work. "That is what I have had to insist to Mr. Attlee, who, I'm afraid, rather shares your opinion about Mr. Chamberlain."

"But you've nothing in common with any of them."

"I can count on the claws of a chicken's foot the number of men you and I can trust. It's not enough. We need more." He finished off the letter with a flourish. "Which is why I have just written to the Kaiser enquiring whether, before the Wehrmacht arrives, he would wish to exchange his exile in Holland for a suitable small establishment in this country."

Bracken choked on his drink, spluttering, when at last he could, "You expect the old Kaiser, the man who started the last bloody war, to help you in this one?"

"No, I don't expect that. But I would like it. I know him, of course. Attended manoeuvres with him in 1909. An odious and ill-formed man. But useful. If by any chance he would agree, oh, how it would distract Hitler. Take his eye off the ball. Kaiser, versus the Fuehrer, German against German." He sealed the envelope he had been addressing and rang a hand bell. "I would do a deal with the Devil if only he would part company with Hitler for a moment. We do so desperately need some distraction. We have enemies enough without creating more. Which is why we must have Neville, and Edward Halifax, too. And all the rest."

He rang the bell again, more impatiently.

"And for me?"

"For you, Brendan? Minister of Information, I thought. My own private Goebbels. Waging war with words. You're good at that. And we have so little else with which to wage war."

"Thank you, Winston. With all my heart. But no. I think I should be here, by your side. At least until you have the show up and running."

"You would refuse your own ministry?"

"There are so few who know you, understand your ways."

Suddenly Churchill rose to his feet and flung open the door behind his desk. It led to a corridor, and at its end, deep in conversation, stood two male secretaries. Churchill's shoulders heaved in irritation.

"Have you both been deafened by the blast of some enemy bomb?" he shouted at them. "Can there be any other reason why you have failed to respond to my bell?"

Bemused, they looked towards him and started to approach.

"Fly! Fly! Or shall I call the guard to encourage you at the point of a fixed bayonet?"

The first man broke into a hurried shuffle; the second, seeking salvation, ducked into an open office door. It was Colville who arrived, his face a cauldron of embarrassment and anger.

"I'm sorry, Prime Minister. A little confusion in responsibilities. We were rather expecting you to arrive at Downing Street this evening."

"Downing Street is still the home of Mr. Chamberlain. I have offered it to him and Mrs. Chamberlain until they can make suitable alternative arrangements. In the meantime you are to attend upon me here."

I'm sorry, sir. As I said, a matter of confusion."

"And you are to run, do you hear me? Every time you hear that bell, you run, not walk, for so long as this war is in progress. I will not have walkers."

Colville swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry with resentment. Never in his public service had he been spoken to like this. Still, it made his decision all the easier. He wouldn't put up with it for a moment longer than would be necessary to get himself a transfer. Submarines, for all he cared, after this.

"Tell me, where did you go to school?" Churchill demanded.

What? What had his wretched school to do with it? "Why, Harrow, sir. But a while after you."

"Ah, another Harrovian. We make good runners at Harrow. You'll do."

And so, through the accident of his education, Colville stood condemned.

"Now, get me Lord Halifax on the phone. I have an urgent letter for him to deliver."

"It's gone midnight. His Lordship will be asleep in bed, I'm afraid, sir."

"You know that for a fact?"

"I know His Lordship, sir."

"Nevertheless, get him on the phone for me."

"It will be a most exceptional pleasure for him," Colville responded, tripping over his own sarcasm.

Churchill thrust his head forward. It made him look like a cannonball in flight. "No, it will not be a pleasure for him at this hour. And in future it will not be exceptional, either. Pray inform His Lordship of that, and anyone else that matters."

Without another word, Churchill went back to his work and began writing a fresh letter. Colville, his face ashen, backed slowly out of the door.

Bracken hooked his leg over the arm of his chair and began to chuckle. "As I said, Winston, there are so few who understand your ways. I think I'd better stay."

Churchill's head fell towards the notepaper. "Thank God there's one person in this room who knows what to do."

It had been like a triumphal progress from ancient times. Slowly the British army moved forward across the frontier into what, until that morning, had been the green fields and gentle canals of neutral Belgium. At every village and crossroads they were greeted like heroes. Old men shuffled forward in carpet slippers to offer them bottles of beer, with womenfolk at their side bearing baskets of cheeses and oranges, and daughters who climbed up on the vehicles with their snatches of schoolgirl English to hand out an abundance of flowers and kisses. The BEF advanced upon the enemy with lilac on their helmets and dictionaries in their pockets, and soon the songs of old could be heard encouraging them on their way "Tipperary', "Pack Up Your Troubles', and a new one, a tune about how they were going to hang out their washing on the Siegfried Line.

The column was closely packed, a confusion of every sort of vehicle grinding along at the pace of the slowest, but they were all heading in the same direction. North, towards the enemy. Belgian bicycle troops meandered beside the convoy, frantically ringing their bells. It was spring, hawthorn blossom blew across their path, and the British army sweated gently in the sun.

By early evening they had passed through Brussels and were making camp in an old deserted brewery outside Mechelen. They unloaded the chairs, filing cabinets and the bottles of sherry while tea was brewed. This site was to be the Casualty Clearing Station, for the time when there were casualties. But of the enemy there was no sign. Perhaps this one was going to be easy, after all.

In the evening, the padre came round with a billy can of corned-beef stew accompanied by cigarettes and a homily about the morality of their cause. Strange, Don thought, how morality had become such a moveable feast. Why, it was less than two years ago when vicars throughout the land had climbed into their pulpits to denounce aggression and offer prayers for the triumph of appeasement and Neville Chamberlain. Yet today, from those same pulpits and plundering phrases from the same scriptures, they prayed to the Almighty that they might remember their gas masks and gain rapid victory. Whichever way you read it, kneeling down or standing on your head, it simply made you giddy.

That's not what he had explained to the Tribunal for the Registration of Conscientious Objectors, of course. For them he had displayed a morality that was clear, principled and utterly inflexible he'd copied that much from his father. And it was his father's God-fearing morality that he offered them, everything taken from the Book, every argument backed up by scripture and psalm. They quoted the Book back at him, all the bits about eyes for eyes and the righteousness of vengeance, but he'd spent so much more time in church and Bible classes than they had that putting down their counter-case had proved to be, quite literally, child's play.