WC02 - Never Surrender

by Michael Dobbs

  "We are all agreed that he must," he repeated.

  And no one contradicted him.

  The French also insist that we send them several more squadrons of fighters," a voice ventured.

  "Then we must try."

  Yet now there was dissent. The Chief of the Air Staff spoke out. "If we send them more fighters, what difference will it make to the war in France?"

  "It might keep the French fighting," Churchill snapped.

  "That is a possibility, Prime Minister. No more than a possibility. Yet one thing we all know for certain," the Air Chief continued, taking a step forward like a matador approaching a bull, 'is that if we lose more fighters in France we will ruin any chance we've got of effective resistance when the Germans invade here."

  They all heard it. When. Not if.

  "We can't win this battle in France," he continued, 'and if we try we could end up losing the entire war."

  The moment of silence that followed seemed to stretch to eternity. With a single phrase their nightmares had ventured into the open. They might lose this war.

  Churchill's impatience sprang forward. "Rut if we do nothing we might lose the entire British Expeditionary Force." There was an edge of frustration in his voice; Halifax thought it bordered on desperation. "We must give the French every encouragement to fight."

  "Yet the French insist it's the British who are not fighting." The argument was going round in circles.

  "So Gort must move south. Better the BEF goes down fighting than be swept onto the sands. And let us promise the French more squadrons. A symbolic gesture of alliance."

  "We must not send them to France," the Air Chief objected, clearly incensed.

  "Then base them in Kent and Sussex," Churchill growled.

  "But that would greatly reduce their flying time over France."

  "Which will greatly reduce their rate of attrition. I thought you would welcome that."

  "What will the French say?" Halifax joined the fray. "How can we promise them fighters, yet keep them in England?"

  The French High Command is so confused it doesn't even know where its own armies are, let alone the R.A.F. Let us not confuse them any further. We simply won't tell them."

  It was breathtaking duplicity. If only he could fool the Germans so easily. The British Prime Minister had become little more than a card sharp.

  At that moment a phone rang on a desk in one of the far reaches of the room. An admiral strode to pick it up, listened carefully, then held the receiver out at arm's length in some puzzlement.

  "They say it's our commander in Boulogne."

  Amidst the chaos of submarine cables that crossed the Channel, a circuit had at last been completed. It wouldn't last for long. Halifax watched in bemused horror as, with surprising energy, Churchill sprang across the room to grab the phone. Moments later he was engaged in a heated discussion about which end of the quay the troops should be fighting from. He barked orders, then listened, but not for long, before he was shouting once more.

  "Commander, if there are so many tanks massed in front of you, it should be easy enough to hit a few!"

  Then the connection went dead. Boulogne was gone. Churchill was left looking at the phone trying to will it back to life.

  The war was being played from hour to hour, without any plan, and every hour it was getting worse. Halifax was decided. This was, indeed, madness. It could not go on.

  (Thursday 23 May 1940. William L. Shirer, CBS.)

  Good evening. This is Berlin.

  I returned here from the front a couple of hours ago after a four-hundred-and-fifty-mile drive from the Belgian border. Berlin, I must say, seems a little quiet after three days of hearing the big guns go off and the heavy bombs exploding ... Correspondents of the three American press associations and I had quite a time of it making ourselves heard on the telephone with our reports last night because of the noise of British bombs and the German anti-aircraft guns nearby. Actually, the British bombers were aiming for an important military objective about a hundred yards from our hotel. They kept at it all night, and were always warm, so to speak, but not hot. The nearest they hit was about four or five hundred yards from the hotel, and though the bombs jarred us, they did not jar us enough to break any windows .. .

  During the day, at least on the Belgian front west of Brussels, where we were, the Allies do not do any bombing. And one of the things that impressed me most was the picture of the German army bringing up men, guns and supplies, jamming the roads with them for miles and miles behind the front, without hindrance from the Allied air forces. I'm convinced that the ease with which the German Command has been able to bring up reinforcements and guns and ammunition, and at an unbelievable speed, is one of the reasons for the German success so far.

  I understand that this is not the case on the other side because of the deadly work of the German air force behind the Allied lines. This state of affairs gives the Germans a tremendous advantage even before the battle starts .. .

  It was only forty miles, yet they had spent two days trying to get to Calais and still they weren't there. They might never make it.

  It was partly the roads, of course, flooded to impassability with refugees. An entire nation seemed to be on the move. Teachers, nuns, bakers and sweeps, bureaucrats who had fled their bureaux and policemen who had long since given up trying to police; they came in lorries, on tractors, in carts, on foot; horses pulled cars and children pushed their own prams until they came together to form vast eddies of humanity that swirled across every route. They had only one thing in common, these refugees, their terror of the advancing Germans. They came from all points and were heading they knew not where, choking every route with their despair.

  The refugees were one reason why it seemed to Don that he might not make it. The other reason was the bloody Frenchman.

  The sous-lieutenant Don still hadn't been entrusted with his name seemed intent on discovering more to complain about with every passing mile. If it wasn't Don's driving it was the despicable nature of the British-built jeep as it coughed and choked its way in low gear through the press of those around them. More than once Don thought about leaving him to fend for himself, or at least handing him over to the next detachment of French troops.

  The troops were everywhere, standing around or squatting disconsolately in villages and at crossroads, even sitting in roadside cafes and simply waiting. It was from the soldiers that Don and the Frenchman got their supplies of fuel. It seemed they had plenty to give away. But none was carrying arms.

  It was as Don was filling up with more purloined petrol that he saw an artillery unit disconsolately spiking their guns.

  "Why are they doing that?"

  "Doing what?"

  "Destroying their weapons."

  "They appear to have forgotten to give you any weapons at all," the Frenchman snorted in contempt.

  "I'm noncombatant."

  "Like the rest of your countrymen."

  "We all came to France to do our bit."

  "Ah, there speaks a true Englishman. Happy so long as his battles are fought on someone else's ground. Just like the last war."

  "That's enough! My father fought in France. We left millions of dead behind."

  "And your government seems determined not to repeat that experience. Is that why they have refused us planes and sent only four miserable divisions?"

  "Ten! We sent ten."

  "Ten? France has more than a hundred. But as we say, the English will always fight to the last Frenchman."

  "I've been driving all day and I don't see too many bloody Frenchmen fighting for anything!" Don retorted.

  The words had an extraordinary effect on the airman. His fists clenched. His face, up to that point so stiff with resentment, seemed to melt into a state that mixed revulsion with panic. His lips became twisted; his eyes lashed out in search of some elusive target. He couldn't find it, so instead he grabbed his crutch and began beating it against the bonnet of the jeep with all the
might he could muster standing on one leg, until the bonnet was riddled with huge dents and the crutch had been left in many fragments.

  When he had finished, tears had washed away every trace of his rage to reveal nothing but dishonour and degradation.

  The sous-lieutenant was a Frenchman. This was his country, his soil, he wanted to fight for it but no one else would help, least of all his own countrymen. France was dying. He had been fleeing from the truth as furiously as he could, but he only had one foot and one man to help him. An unarmed Englishman. The truth had at last caught up with him. The heart of France had all but stopped beating.

  The strength remaining in his one leg seemed to fail him and he slumped forward; Don rushed to catch him. He held the sous-lieutenant in his arms until the pain had hidden itself once more.

  "Well, Pierre or Pascal or whatever your name is, I think it's about time we got you to Calais."

  Friday 24 May. Churchill had been in charge for precisely fourteen days. The newspapers that morning were all of a similar mind, but it was the Evening Standard that captured the mood most vividly. Its headline was simple: 'prepare for THE WORST!'

  It had poured with rain for the first time in months. It came like a harbinger of dark times, yet the ground still resisted the cut of the spade. In the moonlight, the gardener bent over his work, digging a hole broad and deep enough to bury a dog, hard against the brick wall that separated the garden from the churchyard. Owls screeched in the moist Essex night. Somewhere close at hand a fox barked sharply and pheasants spluttered their displeasure, but the gardener toiled on, piling shovelfuls of earth to one side.

  He was not alone. A cigarette glowed in the darkness from beneath the branches of a nearby tree. The gardener muttered as his spade struck a thin root; he chopped through it and dug deeper.

  Eventually he straightened. "I think it's ready, sir."

  "Are you sure?"

  The gardener climbed into the hole to give an indication of its depth. He had been told there must be no lights, no chance of them being seen. They had waited until almost midnight; the rest of the staff should be abed.

  Chips Channon stepped forward. "Very well, Mortimer. You may proceed."

  Two tin boxes wrapped in oilskin were lowered into the hole. The larger, lower box contained the diaries that Channon had been keeping since he was a young man. He stood in prayer for their safekeeping; he was burying part of himself, and, history would argue, the most important part. A second box was laid on top containing other precious possessions: his watches, Faberge curios, sentimental items.

  Channon picked up a handful of the dry earth and let it trickle over the boxes, which sounded back at him like a muffled drum. "Until we are reunited," he whispered.

  "God willing, this will all be unnecessary, sir," the gardener offered, beginning to pile on the rest of the soil.

  Channon did not respond. God seemed to have been busy elsewhere these last few weeks, a world away from Essex.

  For the first time in his life Channon was grateful for his American passport. He suspected he was going to need it.

  "I hope you don't mind- a walk in the park, Joe. Nowadays I'm beginning to find my office a little .. ." he searched for a word 'claustrophobic'

  "Edward, you've got an office like a palace. Biggest I've seen, outside of Hollywood."

  "Nevertheless .. ."

  "Nevertheless it's too close to Downing Street, eh?"

  Halifax and Kennedy, the Minister and the Ambassador, stepped out around the lake of St. James's Park. Kennedy was enjoying himself; Halifax appeared strained. The bonds that had secured the many strands of his orderly life seemed to be on the point of dissolving. He'd been having difficulty sleeping, even on the nights when the telephone didn't ring.

  "You heard that Boulogne's gone?" Kennedy enquired.

  "Yes. That was one thing that did manage to filter its way through to me. Joe, it's all such a mess! I scarcely know what to do." He stopped, took out a handkerchief and wiped the inner lining of his bowler hat. "Rab suggested I should have a private word with you."

  The American laughed. "Out here no eavesdroppers, no evidence."

  Halifax bit back his distaste. Kennedy irritated him: he was so tactless, so new world, so clearly on the make. And yet he was perceptive, could see the fault lines, the growing disloyalties perhaps because he was himself so congenitally disloyal. Halifax needed him. Whatever was left of the world after this war was finished would undoubtedly be new; it would be gauche, self-serving and overwhelmingly self-centred, no matter whether it was run by Germans or Americans. Halifax had once been Viceroy of India, a ruler of millions, but by this stage his ambition amounted to little more than the hope that, when the fuss had died down, there would be a modest corner of the world that could remain unashamedly traditional, run along lines that emphasized continuity and an old established order. If it meant having to sacrifice much of the Empire and British influence in the world, he could live with that. It was going to happen eventually, with or without the war. Empires came, and empires closed; the British had had a good innings. What did it matter if they retired early, and just a little hurt? He didn't want to fight for world supremacy; he didn't much want to fight at all.

  "Joe, forgive me for being blunt. Matters in France are becoming so very difficult'

  "Edward, you call that being blunt? France isn't difficult, it's a flaming disaster."

  "It faces us with a dilemma. You see, there are those who hold that it would be impossible for Britain to fight this war on our own."

  "Yeah, I've talked to a few. More than a few."

  "If France were to collapse ... if that were to happen, America would be our only hope of continuing with the war. So let me put the matter directly. Are there any circumstances in which America will come and help us fight?"

  The Ambassador thought for a moment. "If hell freezes or Alaska floats away. Otherwise, no."

  "You are sure?"

  "Edward, I've seen the telegrams that Winston's been sending Roosevelt. Practically down on his knees, begging for help. Saying catastrophe is just around the corner. Answer's still the same."

  "Winston is always going on about America as if ... well, as if he expects the cavalry to coming riding to our rescue at any moment."

  "So did Custer."

  A pelican screeched from its rock in the middle of the lake. Halifax raised his head, looking anxiously towards Downing Street as if he expected to see Churchill at a window with a raised set of binoculars.

  "Then if not war, would America be willing to help us pursue a peace?"

  "What sort of peace?"

  "Who can tell until we start talking? But an immediate end to the war, some agreement over Europe, the return of a few of Germany's colonies, perhaps. I think in the circumstances we would have to be flexible."

  Kennedy didn't pause before replying. He knew what to expect; he'd been as well briefed by Butler as had Halifax.

  "You know we'd help on that, Edward. No one wants this ridiculous war to continue. But I can't see Winston agreeing to it."

  The Foreign Secretary's head bent like a heron staring into a murky pond. "Let us suppose for a moment that Winston weren't a problem. Could we do that, Joe? Just hypothetically? Where would that leave America?"

  "Anxious. But not out of it. Problem is, Edward, you've got Germany and you've got Russia and hell, who knows what's gonna happen there? What we wouldn't want to see is a peace deal which ends up making either of those two more of a threat."

  "Be a little more specific'

  "Figure it this way. The jig is up for Britain. You talk peace now and you'll get a better deal than you will later on, but even so Hitler will demand you hand over your military. Army's not a problem, that's already as good as gone. Your air force, too. But the navy? Well, that's something else. You know we couldn't be happy if your Royal Navy ended up in Hitler's hands. Hell, in a couple of years' time it could end up in Moscow. Do I make myself clear?"

  Hali
fax winced at the suggestion.

  "So the way this particular game goes, Edward, is that we'll give you all the help with a peace that we can, so long as you give us your navy."

  "Give it to you?"

  "Sell it, loan it, scuttle it anything so long as it doesn't end up covered in swastikas or the hammer and sickle. And you'll find Hitler a hell of a sight more reasonable about a peace treaty if you don't have a navy. What's the point of playing poker with a man who's clean out of chips?"

  "There might be only one problem with that."

  "Which is?"

  "Winston."

  "Hell, I thought we were talking hypothetical."

  "He seemed so remarkably unhypothetical at our last encounter."

  "Then damn the hypothetical and start talking miracles, Edward. Because that's what you'll need if you're gonna climb out of this hole."

  Boulogne had gone. They would fall upon Calais next. And back in London they seemed to be either ignorant or indifferent. Or was it incapable?

  The young captain had followed his instructions to the letter. Much to his surprise, they had worked. A bloodied face and a battle-stained tunic was still so unusual in the corridors of Whitehall that it got the bearer past most of the roadblocks before anyone had time to recover from their surprise and ask him what he was up to until he had reached all the way to the Upper War Room in the Admiralty.

  The Chiefs of Staff were gathered with their staff men for the evening conference, but Churchill was late, still at dinner, keeping them all waiting, and their mood was fractious.

  "Who the hell are you and what the hell are you doing here, Captain?" one of the Chiefs barked as the young officer appeared in the room. He offered a salute that had lost its starch; the eyes were glazed with fatigue.

  "I have just come from Calais, sir."

  "Ah! How's it going?"

  "It's not, sir. Not going at all. It's .. ."

  Chaos. A total balls-up. An unmitigated bloody fiasco. But he didn't say so. These were the men responsible and a captain couldn't overwhelm the Chiefs of Staff with a frontal assault.