Winston’s War (58 page)

“Ambition, envy, impatience—those things I can understand in Winston. But not this.”

“Perhaps he is mad, like his father, or simply riddled with greed, but whatever the disease it makes him dangerous.”

“A pity, perhaps, we could not have arranged for him to be in Namsos. That would have put an end to his suffering.”

Peter had at last been put to bed, and Lindy had long been asleep. Quiet time. Carol sat beside a lamp with tears trickling slowly down her cheeks. But these weren't tears of humiliation. These were tears of pride. She had decided that Mrs. Braithwaite and her kind weren't worth the blubber from which they were built. Carol knew that what she was doing wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference to the war, but it would make a difference to her. A tiny, insignificant act of defiance. Yet if that defiance were repeated a thousand times over and a hundred thousand times more, then an entire nation might defy the whirlwind that was about to be hurled at it.

Carol sat with her favorite woolen jumper on her knee, unraveling it thread by thread. When she had finished, she picked up her needles and started to knit.

The clerk at Churchill's bank had told him. Rodney, that honey-lipped creature who kept Burgess informed of all the
comings and goings around Churchill's financial affairs. Rodney told him there was competition. Other people making inquiries. Official-type people, who wanted to know where Churchill got his money. He knew they were official types and that it was urgent because the branch manager had jumped on him from a great height after lunch, which was unusual because on most days after lunch the manager suffered from sleeping sickness. He had demanded that Churchill's files be brought from the archives, and now they were locked in his desk.

Burgess didn't like the questions, because he knew that those asking them wouldn't like the answers when they found them, as eventually they would. Burgess hadn't made the arrangements himself, but knew that the money would have been “washed” several times, passing through a series of different accounts. Washed carefully, because it was dirty money. Not Jewish, as he had suggested to Churchill, but Russian money soaked in blood, the blood of Tsars and peasants and Poles and Finns.

It might take them time to get to the bottom of it, but they were still digging, so Rodney had said. Digging Burgess's grave. And Churchill's, too. Suddenly he was afraid, more afraid than he had ever felt in his life. Too scared even to drink, at least for that first night. But by Christ he made up for it on the second, and every night thereafter. Yet in spite of it all, he couldn't sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he had dreams filled with silent, faceless men who were getting ever closer.

April–May 1940.

B
ob Boothby's train to Amsterdam was remarkably punctual, considering the atmosphere of uncertainty that was growing throughout Holland. From the station he walked to the Amstel Hotel, a nineteenth-century gingerbread confection on the banks of the city's main river. He gave his name as Brown to the receptionist, which he hoped he pronounced as Braun, and was escorted immediately up the rear stairs to a private room at the back of the hotel on the second floor. He found four men sitting round a green-baize table. He appeared to have interrupted a languid game of cards. There were only four chairs, but as soon as Boothby entered one of the men rose and took up position by the door. The others introduced themselves with nothing more than a handshake.

Thirty-five minutes later, he had been offered four hundred thousand new German Mausers, with one thousand rounds of ammunition each. He was told delivery could start the following week and could be completed in a maximum of three. The bulk of the rifles were still in Germany, but they could be swiftly moved to any port in Belgium he required. Payment was to be in uncut diamonds, on delivery in Belgium.

However, for a surcharge of twenty-five percent they would also accept payment in dollars through a nominated bank in the United States. Boothby suggested a European bank, but they shook their heads.

“Not even the Bank of England.”

“You doubt its word?” Boothby inquired.

“No. Simply its future ownership. It would not be comfortable for us if the records of this transaction fell into German hands.”

“Impossible!” They simply shrugged.

“Tell me—how can I explain to my masters how these weapons found their way out of Germany? How can you guarantee their delivery?”

“Many Germans hate the Nazis—industrialists, customs officers, even some within the Wehrmacht itself. And even those who don't hate the Nazis have an extraordinary affection for dollars. There are so many military vehicles moving every hour of every day just across the border in Germany that no one notices the odd truck which disappears in the darkness. More trucks than ever are on the move right now, that's why the quantities we can offer are so large. And why the time we have is so short.”

“Then on behalf of my Government—”

“Your
neutral
Government,” they emphasized, toying with him. They knew.

“I accept. I'll return home to confirm the details and you shall hear from me forthwith.”

“Then go now, and go swiftly. Time is not on your side.”

“You said three weeks.”

“Maybe less. And remind your Government of one thing.”

“Which is what?”

“If you don't use these rifles, then the Germans will.”

The British press, fed by Government communiqués, would have none of it. Retreat? Impossible! So they announced that it was the Germans who were retreating, abandoning aerodromes. On the twenty-third of April they claimed that British forces had made a rapid thrust into the heart of central Norway and were enjoying considerable success. On the twenty-sixth they claimed that “anti-aircraft artillery had been landed at Namsos in time to protect still further Allied landings.” Yet by then the Government had already decided to abandon the campaign.

Well, it was only a secondary objective anyway, the main priority had always been Narvik to the north. Hadn't it? And it wasn't really the Government's fault that the operation had been delayed time after time. Not the Government's fault that the officer placed in charge of the campaign in central Norway had suffered a stroke on the Duke of York's steps on the very night he had been appointed and been found senseless. Or that his successor's plane had crash-landed, injuring everyone on board, while flying north to visit the embarkation points in Scotland. It wasn't Neville Chamberlain's fault that the campaign had turned into a fiasco, not his fault that the Wehrmacht had got there first or that within days the Luftwaffe had reduced the wooden port of Namsos to smoldering ash.

Yet still the 146th pressed on. They were spread along a front many scores of miles long in their eagerness to get to Trondheim, but now the ice that was supposed to protect their flank was melting and the Germans were outflanking them, threatening to rip them to pieces. Yet they pressed on, because no one had told them that their campaign had already been abandoned.

Churchill had not favored the attack on Trondheim; his interest had been focused on Narvik, further north, from where the iron ore was shipped. He had agreed to Chamberlain's insistence on the Trondheim campaign only with reluctance. Yet now Chamberlain had changed his mind. It wasn't working.
Time to run. It left Churchill feeling powerless, almost humiliated. “If we must withdraw,” he told his Cabinet colleagues, “then let us at least throw our full force at Narvik. Hold back the iron ore. With a little good fortune we might achieve that within days. Salvage something.”

It seemed sensible, indeed possible; the Germans were much weaker in the isolated port so far beyond the Arctic Circle. So, incredibly, they had gone back to Churchill's original proposal, dismissed all those months ago.

Chamberlain issued the orders. Pursue the campaign against Narvik with full speed. Forget Trondheim.

“But don't tell the French, not yet. I fear they will leak it,” Chamberlain instructed. “And don't tell the Norwegians anything at all. They'll think we are abandoning them and refuse to help.” Churchill cleared his throat; something unpleasant was sticking in it.

“And tell our own troops to hold their positions, not to evacuate for a few days more,” Chamberlain continued.

“But why?” Churchill demanded, startled. “There are no military reasons I can think of for delaying the withdrawal.”

“Political reasons, First Lord, political. We have a home front, too, remember. If we announce we are…”—he reached once again for that ambiguous, shameful word—“withdrawing from central Norway, it will have a terrible effect on public opinion. No, let us hold on for a few days longer and see whether we can temper the news with a victory at Narvik. Perhaps present the picture that we only went into central Norway in order to gain time for our real objective. Narvik.”

“We are to instruct our troops there to hold their positions—their untenable positions—in the hope of…better headlines?”

“We must never allow ourselves to forget that morale on the home front is the key to winning any war, First Lord,” Chamberlain responded testily. “As I'm sure you agree.”

The key to winning a war. And to winning elections and staying in power. Furious thoughts about casting down the lives of brave men to save one's own were beginning to frame themselves in Churchill's mind, but he knew any such expression would have to be handled with the greatest care. In any event it was too late—Chamberlain had closed his folder, the War Cabinet was over. The pretense of success was to be maintained.

And so it was. Two days after the decision to evacuate had been taken, the
Times
correspondent proclaimed that “
the Allied war machine is working smoothly and efficiently along the front north of Trondheim—all the British and French troops we encountered were confident and cheerful.”
The following day he wrote that
“there is no truth whatever in the statement issued by the German Headquarters claiming a serious defeat of the Franco-British forces. In fact, real fighting has not yet begun round Trondheim, the Allies being busy preparing bases for operations.”

Of course the real fighting had not begun. It was never going to begin. The same day as
The Times
published their confident explanation of “the truth,” a flotilla left Scapa to begin the evacuation.

The spring had arrived, clothed in a cloak of many colors that was as vivid and inspiring as most Londoners could remember. Yet Burgess saw none of it. His world was drained of light and of hope. His eyes told the story—raw, rimmed with fatigue, staring back at him from a filthy mirror. There was stubble on his chin and his hair was soaked with sweat. He had tried it every way, going to bed sober, going to bed drunk, and getting so utterly obliterated that he had no idea where his bed was. Yet no matter how or where he lay, every morning his life still stank of fear. Rodney, the bank clerk, had told him they were still at it. Digging.

He knew what he was supposed to do—it had been drummed into him a hundred times. Do nothing. Act entirely normally, that's what the manual said. But there was so little that was normal about Burgess, he was a man to whom the rules simply didn't apply.

So he decided to act. To do something. To see Churchill—in person, face to face. He had to warn Churchill, to save him from the consequences, and if he could do that then perhaps, Burgess thought, he might also save himself. But he couldn't get to Churchill. Churchill was at war, a man who ate, slept, and worked in the most closely guarded building in the country, a building crawling with watchers who, presumably, were now suspicious of their First Lord, who would be monitoring his mail and telephone calls, would see every move Churchill made and who would mark down everyone he talked to. Burgess couldn't get to him there, not in the Admiralty, it would be a potential death trap.

The face glared back at him from the mirror. He rubbed a finger across his teeth and dug the knuckles deep into his eyes, then he pulled at his hair, but nothing changed. He was still afraid. But it was as he was tugging at his sweat-soaked hair that the idea came to him. Mac. Of course, bloody Mac. The man who was always full of surprises, the worker of minor miracles. Whose empire was Trumper's, the barbers to kings and courtiers, statesmen and spies, almost everyone in the land who mattered.

“Mac, listen,” Burgess barked moments later down the phone. “Mr. Churchill. He one of yours? At Trumper's?”

“Not one of mine, exactly, Mr. Burgess. He belongs to Alfred.”

“Churchill's a regular, then?”

“We don't encourage casual relationships.”

“So when? When is he coming in next?”

Burgess heard the pages of a thick ledger being shuffled.

“He's overdue. Seems to have canceled twice in the last ten days. There must be a war on or something.”

“Mac, you bastard—”

“Wednesday. He has a new appointment for Wednesday, Mr. Burgess.”