‘Right. Well, that’s a long time in war. I’ve been with the Old Man.’ Churchill had quite naturally and overnight become the Old Man in the same way that a captain of a ship is the Old Man. ‘You’ll probably be able to see him for a couple of minutes. He’s trying to see all the people he’s roped in. Even you and me. Christ, he’s certainly a whirlwind. If a whirlwind can be that shape. He’s got people running all over the place.’
‘What is your new job?’ asked James. ‘You said you’d been roped in as well.’
‘Propaganda, I suppose you could term it quite bluntly. Otherwise information. Not at the ministry, thank God, I couldn’t stand that. It’s buzzing around here and at Number Ten. I’m a sort of extra fielder, a bit like you really.’
James turned the magazine on to its front. ‘You might start by stopping British servicemen putting up their thumbs every time they see a camera,’ he suggested, tapping the photograph. ‘It looks ridiculous in retrospect. A thumb to the nose would be more like it.’
‘Signs and portents,’ sighed Benson. ‘You have to have something like that – something people will recognize, everybody from the simpleton to the don. Perhaps we ought to think up a replacement. I confess the British Tommy’s thumb is wearing a bit thin.’
An orderly came into the room. ‘Mr Benson, sir,’ he said, ‘Major Lovatt’s office is all ready now. They’ve moved out all those dusty old filing cabinets.’ Benson and James grinned together. ‘And,’ continued the man, his voice dropped a little, ‘you also have clearance to show Major Lovatt the Bunker.’
Benson nodded and they went out into Horse Guards Parade, the park as bright and active as a set for a musical comedy; soldiers marching in squads and nannies shepherding children along the grass at the edge of the lake. ‘The Bunker,’ said Benson presently, ‘is top secret. And that’s not just a useful phrase. It’s no funk hole. It is where the prosecution of the war will be carried on while we are under attack, either by bombers or invading forces. It will be the last thing in London to stop working. It will be operational even if the bloody Panzers are driving up The Mall.’
James glanced sideways at Benson. He saw he was smiling. ‘See, somebody had some foresight after all,’ his father’s friend said. They strode along in the sunshine, the sound of military boots and the shouts of children mingling. Eventually Benson asked: ‘All right then, major, what can you suggest to replace the soldier’s thumbs-up?’
There was no immediate answer. James remembered his men again, trying to dig gun emplacements in the snow. A lot of good the thumbs-up did for them. His thoughts went to Purkiss, the man who had gone back to his home with his fingers missing. ‘Why not two fingers, like this,’ he held up his first and second fingers, palm of the hand forward. He had a further idea. ‘Like a letter V . . . for victory, see.’
He laughed and Benson laughed also as they strode out. ‘If I can’t think of anything better then I’ll put that in my first report,’ he said. ‘The only trouble is, James, it looks a bit like the Boy Scouts’ salute. Remember?’ He extended two fingers in the vicinity of his ear.
They had reached a building like a mound on the south-east corner of the park. Two guardsmen with fixed bayonets were stationed solidly at a door. They came to attention and a guards sergeant strutted from a side room and examined Benson’s papers and then those of James.
Satisfied, he pressed three buttons and the door was opened. Inside was another NCO, and a man wearing the black coat and striped trousers of a civil servant was coming up a flight of stairs. ‘Welcome to the underworld,’ he smiled at Benson. ‘You can go down, Mr Benson.’
It was odd descending the staircase; like going down into the belly of a large submarine. For the first time in many weeks, James suddenly felt gratified; all the tricks were, after all, not with the enemy. The air closed around them. Ahead of him Benson spoke to another guard and showed his papers. James’s were examined too by a man in plain clothes who led them along a short corridor to where five other men, two civilians, an RAF officer and a jug-shaped naval captain were waiting.
Another civil servant arrived, a portly man with a wavering smile, accompanied by an angular and serious secretary, her hair pulled sternly behind her neck, her costume of blue with a stripe like that of a man. In the manner of a museum curator the portly man said: ‘Good morning, gentlemen. I am Charles Beckett and it’s fallen to me to show you around. I don’t know whether you’ve all been introduced but if you haven’t it’s too late now, everything is being done at the double today. Under new management, you understand. Perhaps as we go around you might find a moment to whisper your names to each other. We shall have to hurry because the Prime Minister will be down here himself in a short while and we must be finished by then. The place very easily becomes cluttered.’
His smile wobbled and as though glad to be rid of it, he turned briskly, leading them along the light corridors. ‘We are seventy feet below ground here, and there’s a great pile of stuff on the surface, so the Luftwaffe can bomb as hard as they like and they won’t touch us here. This entire area – forty separate rooms, offices and living quarters – will be used by the Prime Minister and his staff as an operations’ centre.’ He pointed to a notice on the wall. ‘Our system of warnings,’ he announced. ‘Rattles sounding will announce the presence of poison gas, for example. The alarm of a klaxon will signal that German soldiers are immediately in the street over our heads.’
He strode formally on. ‘I won’t trouble you with all the communications details of the place,’ he said. ‘You will become familiar with that yourself. One thing to remember, however, is this lavatory –’ he touched the door handle ‘– is not a lavatory but accommodates the telephone link to the President of the United States in Washington.’
He opened doors revealing basic desks, chairs and narrow beds, each with its polished wooden clothes hanger with a basket below for shoes. ‘We don’t run to wardrobes, you see,’ said Beckett. ‘This building, if you can call something underground a building – I’m not certain you can – will house more than a hundred personnel of which you, in your various capacities, will at times be a part. You will notice that armchairs are few and far between. Mr Churchill has one in his bedroom. He has to sit somewhere to think.’
Again the lolling smile. James wondered if the man really believed in Churchill. They turned a gradual bend and Beckett paused at a door. ‘This is the War Cabinet room,’ he said. ‘You might as well have a quick peep so that you know where it is, and what it’s like.’
He opened the door and ushered them in. James and Benson, who were at the front of the group, halted immediately for sitting in the chair at the centre of the great polished table sat a solitary squat figure. Beckett, from the rear of the group, called in his ushering tone: ‘Go on in, if you please. We’re in something of a hurry, before the Old Man gets here.’
‘The Old Man is here,’ announced Churchill. His white fleshy hand beckoned to them. ‘But come in, by all means.’
As he came to the front, Beckett’s smile opened and quickly shut. He rambled: ‘Oh, Prime Minister, I’m sorry. No one informed me. You were not due until . . .’
‘Well I’m here,’ announced Churchill with finality. ‘And I’m not going out and making another damned entrance just so you and your clerks can get the timetable in order.’ A childlike, almost sweet smile eased across the large face. He stood up and came around the table towards the group. He was wearing his striped suit and spotted tie. ‘I thought it would be sound planning to claim the best chair before there are any other claimants,’ he said. ‘Welcome, gentlemen, welcome.’ The white hand waved: ‘This is the place from which we intend to win the war.’
He shook hands with each of them, Beckett making ponderous introductions. James wondered whether Churchill would remember their names tomorrow, for he had heard that he did not remember people well.
As if purposely to confound the thought, Churchill, after the handshake, prodded him in the midriff an
d said: ‘Yes, of course, you’re the chap who came here so angry about Norway. There’s nothing like going straight to the root of the trouble. Let us hope you can stop that sort of thing happening again. All it needs is a word in the right minister’s ear. Things are going to move a trifle faster here now, indeed more than a trifle. I hear that Ernest Bevin is buckling his sword, a sight worth seeing I should have thought. He is to be my Minister of Labour. Eden is going on the wireless tonight. You should make time to listen.’ He regarded them solemnly, like a headmaster with a group of senior boys. ‘Anyone here got any ideas about the future conduct of the war? Anyone?’ They fidgeted, half smiling. ‘How about you, Benson? What about some new propaganda? It’s no good just putting up posters and placards telling people there’s a war in progress. My God, the Ministry of Information plastered the country with a slogan saying, “Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution will bring US Victory.” ’ His chin descended with displeasure. ‘That sounds like a case of them and us. They do it and we win. What genius thought of that, I wonder?’
It seemed as though the Prime Minister were about to move on to the jug-like naval officer; his hands went behind his back and he embarked on a short, thoughtful walk, but then turned on Benson again and repeated: ‘Any new idea? Anything?’
Benson looked discomfited. He glanced at James, patently desperate. ‘Well, Prime Minister,’ he hesitated. ‘Major Lovatt and I were discussing something this morning. Just as we were walking here. It was his idea, actually.’
Churchill turned his squat face on James but immediately moved it back towards Benson. ‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘It’s rather trifling, I’m afraid, but he felt, and I agree, that it’s time the thumbs-up was done away with, replaced by something new. You know, sir, the soldier . . . thumbs up . . . His embarrassment made him gabble the words.
‘I know, I know,’ said Churchill impatiently. ‘It’s been going on for several wars to my knowledge. But what would replace it? Nothing too elaborate. People have got to understand it.’
‘We discussed a V-sign, holding up the forefinger and middle finger, in reverse as it were. V-for-Victory, you see.’
James began to get the feeling that all this was becoming silly. To discuss fingers when people were being killed seemed futile. But clearly Churchill wanted to give it his time.
‘Yes, all right. It’s all very well. But that’s the salute that Baden Powell thought up for his Boy Scouts. I remember his practising it in South Africa, and damned silly he looked too.’
Immediately he appeared to tire of the subject and dismissed it, or apparently so, until, having gone along the line to speak to the RAF officer, he abruptly looked back towards Benson and held up the two fingers. ‘No good,’ he said. ‘It needs something extra. Something to go with it. We may have to persevere with the worn-out thumb.’
He confronted the RAF man, who blushed. ‘You see we’ve started bombing Germany,’ Churchill said, as if he might have missed the news. ‘What do you feel about that? We’re risking retaliation, you know. Right up there.’ He pointed to the ceiling. ‘On London.’
‘Yes, sir, I’m sure it’s right, sir,’ responded the officer tentatively. ‘According to the newspapers the bomber raid on Freiburg was very successful.’
‘An error,’ grumbled Churchill. ‘On the part of the Germans. It wasn’t our planes, it was the Hun, the Luftwaffe. Damned fools dropped the bombs on their own people. Broad daylight too. Navigational mistake, I understand. One hundred and forty miles off course. The bombs were meant for somewhere in France.’ He had lowered his chin as if conversing with the carpet, but now he lifted it with a grim grin. ‘They can make errors too.’
In a moment he appeared weary, drained, and he clearly wanted them out of the room. ‘Bevin’s coming,’ he said, half looking towards the civil servant Beckett. ‘I must be ready for him. There are also some other guests expected. Her Majesty Queen Wilhelmina and the Dutch Government. Holland, I am sad to tell you, has this morning capitulated.’
Eight
HALF THE NUNS in the convent at Lyndhurst were, according to Ma Fox at the Old Crown, German spies, known to creep the coast by night, flashing signals to alien aircraft, and with daggers and bombs concealed beneath their black folds. For her, behind her bar like a barricade, war had so far only been exciting because of its opportunity for rumour. As with many others, in Binford and in Britain, remote communiqués and photographs of officers staring through binoculars at some unspecified horizon had failed to stir her. Stories of ten thousand cardboard coffins concealed in a forest cave, a poison gas that burned the feet off, and secret information that all dogs and cats were to be butchered when the Germans landed were the stuff she savoured. Penalties for spreading alarm and despondency she ignored as not applying to her.
Anthony Eden, War Secretary in the new Government, a slender politician with an elegant hat, had broadcast to the nation that evening and, in well-brushed tones, had called for the raising of a citizens’ army, a force of Local Defence Volunteers, men previously exempt from the services. They were to have armbands and arm themselves with whatever they could, even golf clubs and pitchforks, and stand ready to meet the enemy. They were to be alert for parachutists, spies and traitors.
‘Nuns,’ added Ma Fox firmly. She was watching the four-ale bar fill up to an extent unknown on a Tuesday night.
Harold Clark was not sure. ‘Nuns are ’aving a bad time,’ he suggested doubtfully. ‘Over in Belgium and ’olland, from what I hear. Jerry seems to fancy nuns.’
‘Different sort of nuns,’ argued Ma Fox. Charlie, her son, nudged her to get back to the pumps, for the room was filling rapidly.
Men came in from the village and from The Haven and isolated parts of the forest. Liberty Cooper and two of his brothers arrived and stood darkly against the back wall. ‘Wonder ’ow they heard?’ asked Gates the gamekeeper whose radio had been stolen from his cottage the previous week.
It was not the moment to voice his suspicions to Police Constable Brice who was pushing people closer together in the room. Next door the saloon bar was empty, the radio still on from Eden’s broadcast and now relaying dance music.
‘Mr Lovatt will be here soon,’ announced Brice in his officious voice. ‘It’s my orders that Mr Lovatt is to take command.’
The door opened, the black-out curtain fluttered and flew back and Robert entered with Petrie. ‘Make room, come on, men, make room,’ called Brice.
Robert glanced around appreciatively. ‘There’s more arriving outside,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to use both bars, Charlie. Can you get this partition down?’
Charlie Fox looked shocked. ‘Down, Mr Lovatt?’ he said. ‘Well, I expect so. Hasn’t been down since the Coronation.’
Robert said sharply, ‘If it came down then it will come down now. We’ve got to have room to move. And we need a table and a chair.’
His excitement was infused into the room. The Dove brothers took the partition down with a single screwdriver in three minutes. Charlie Fox looked on, creased with doubt. The crowd, some reluctantly, as if they were still unsure of the propriety, moved across the frontier into the saloon bar. The wireless set was playing ‘We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when’. Charlie turned it off emphatically, unwilling to extend all the privileges.
More men came through the door. Ben Bowley, wearing his railway cap set like a drill sergeant, Peter James, the estate manager, who had brought his shotgun. Others had brought rifles and shotguns also: Wilf Smith, Malcolm his brother, and George Lavington. Tom Bower, the Binford Haven shipwright, had a boathook held like a lance. Rob Noyes, the insurance agent, attempted truculence in a long raincoat, worn despite the mild evening. John Lampard came quietly in and stood at the back. With him was the spotty boy Cubbins. Robert looked doubtfully.
Charlie Fox was worried because, despite the unique crowd, he was not selling much beer. Robert, observing his anxiety, said loudly: ‘Right, gentlemen, bef
ore we get down to business will anyone who wants a drink get it now.’ There was an immediate shift back to the four-ale bar where beer was cheaper.
The grateful Charlie put a pint of ale on the table at which Robert had now established himself. ‘That’s on me, Mr Lovatt,’ he said. ‘It’s a big night.’
As he took the first drink Robert saw Tom Purkiss come shyly through the door. He was wearing an army battledress blouse with his cowman’s trousers. ‘Forgot to give it back,’ he said to Donald Petrie. ‘When they threw me out.’
When he saw that the village men, their hands around the glasses and tankards, were ready and expectant, Robert rose behind the table. ‘Right, everybody,’ he announced. Seeing Purkiss in the battledress and the others with the rifles, shotguns and other weapons made him wish he had quickly looked out his old tunic. But it was too late now. ‘We all know why we’re here,’ he continued. ‘We’ve all heard Mr Eden tonight and the idea is that all over the country there are going to be formed units of the Local Defence Volunteers, to deal with the Germans should they be so ill-advised as to try crossing the English Channel.’
There were mumbles and smiles at his jesting boast. ‘I had a telephone call from Major-General Sound, who, as it happens, was my commanding officer in the Great War, and he asked me immediately to set about forming a unit here in Binford and Binford Haven. I’m gratified that the message got around so quickly and that you’ve all come here.’
It was Donald Petrie who looked about and, with a sad heart, wondered what chance they would have, these village gentry, these farm men, these fishermen, these gypsies? What could they do to stop a Panzer division?
‘There are many things we can do,’ said Robert, ‘to stop an invader. What we must remember is that he has to get here first, over the water, or down from the sky, and that’s the time to deal with him, when he is most vulnerable.’ As he spoke he became aware of a small face, like that of a pixie, in a green cap, peering through the space left by two men’s elbows. ‘That lad,’ he said. ‘Off you go.’
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