Churchill's Triumph

by Michael Dobbs

  There came a cry from the crowd outside; the mayor’s wife had nearly lost her footing. There were only moments left for Kluge to decide.

  ***

  When the plumber arrived, his first impression was that there had been some terrible mistake. He found Churchill standing in the middle of his bedroom, short, overweight, his sparse hair awry, clad in nothing but pink silk underwear.

  Churchill was utterly unfazed. He had once greeted the President of the United States stark naked and had no intention of standing on ceremony for a Polish plumber. “Will they begin to suspect you, coming here so often?” he demanded, reaching for a cigar.

  Inside his shapeless worker’s smock, Nowak shrugged. “This is Russia. They suspect if I come. They suspect if I don’t come. You can rely on suspicion. But you cannot rely on plumbing.”

  Yet Churchill was still not sure. “So what precisely did you do in Poland before the war?”

  “So you also suspect me, Mr. Churchill.”

  The Englishman lit his cigar before replying, taking his time. “Let us simply agree that these are suspicious times.”

  “As you know, my home town is—was—Warsaw.”

  “Why do you use the past tense?”

  “Because Warsaw no longer exists. Before the war it was one of most beautiful capital cities in Europe. Now there is nothing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “How can you not know?”

  “We know damn all about what happens in these parts. I’m afraid that Marshal Stalin doesn’t very much welcome visitors roaming around behind his front line.”

  The Pole nodded and smiled. “So Polish plumber knows more than British Prime Minister.”

  “Don’t gloat.”

  “We Poles have forgotten how to gloat.”

  “You were talking of Warsaw.” Churchill walked to the window, staring out like a headmaster waiting for the report of some wayward schoolboy

  “In 1939, the Germans came. Bombed everything. So much was destroyed. Then later they destroyed ghetto. And last summer there was Uprising. More fighting. And after it was over, Hitler ordered everything that was left in Warsaw must be destroyed. As punishment.”

  Suddenly it was Churchill who had the need to explain. He turned from the window. “I tried to help the Uprising. Truly I did, but…” Then his voice trailed away. What was the use of offering excuses?

  Warsaw sits on the Vistula river. By July of the previous year the Red Army had fought their way to a point only a few miles distant, where their guns could be heard clearly in the center of the city. Warsaw filled with anticipation. Then a radio broadcast from Moscow had declared that “the hour of action has arrived” and exhorted the people of Warsaw to rise up against their German occupiers. They did, on the first day of August. They rose and confronted some of the finest German divisions, even though they had little but obsolete rifles and weapons that had been manufactured in cellars. In their desperation they made mortars from drainpipes and grenade fuses from strips of old celluloid film. Every street became a front line, every house a headquarters. The women of Warsaw served as nurses, armorers, and undertakers, their children as messengers and scavengers for food. They fought, and slowly, inevitably, they were crushed. The carnage was terrible, and didn’t cease for sixty-three days.

  And while all this took place, a few miles away on the eastern bank of the Vistula, the Russians sat and watched as their two ancient enemies slaughtered each other.

  Churchill had tried to help, truly he had. Time and again, and then again, he and Roosevelt had proposed that their air forces should drop supplies to the beleaguered Poles, but to do that their aircraft needed to land behind Russian lines for refueling. And Stalin said no. He said the Poles were lying about what was going on in the city, and that the battle in Warsaw was merely a sideshow. Churchill didn’t believe him, was determined to call his bluff, to send the planes anyway, but then it was Roosevelt’s turn to say no. He said it wasn’t the right time to confront the Russian leader. Somehow, for Roosevelt, it was never the right time to confront him.

  After those sixty-three days of carnage, almost one in four of the city’s men, women and children, their sons, their sisters, their parents, their neighbors, their friends, had died or were wounded, and nearly half of the Home Army’s forces who fought there had been killed. What remained of the city was razed on the personal instruction of the German Führer. The beautiful city of Warsaw was left in ashes.

  It was said by some that the Uprising achieved nothing, but that wasn’t entirely correct. It depended on your perspective. From the Russian perspective it had achieved a very great deal. Above all, it had enabled the Red Army to walk into the ruins of the Polish capital confronted by nothing more threatening than the stench of unburied bodies.

  “I tried, I did try,” Churchill repeated.

  “The Polish people grow fat on British assistance.”

  “But at least I tried,” Churchill shouted, angry now.

  The Pole didn’t bother to respond, and his silence stung Churchill more deeply than any words of rebuke.

  “We didn’t know what was going on in Poland—we still don’t,” Churchill argued, seeking mitigation. “We have only the word of the Russians.”

  “Words mean nothing to Russians!”

  “Then that is where you must help me. Tell me all you know of what’s happening in Poland. Stalin says that the Red Army is being greeted everywhere like liberators.”

  “Cossacks? Mongols? Who liberate food from starving peasants and women from the arms of their husbands? Have you grown so old that you cannot see? Russian liberation is like their plumbing. Worthless!” His eyes were burning with contempt, and not just for the Russians.

  Churchill decided he didn’t much like this awkward Pole. He poked at the end of his cigar with a match. “Well, perhaps there’s another view on these matters,” he grumbled distractedly. “And we shall shortly hear it. Marshal Stalin has sent for the Lublin Poles.”

  “Then you may be waiting a very long time, Mr. Churchill.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They are not coming.”

  The Englishman looked bewildered.

  “It is game, Mr. Churchill. And already you lose.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “At dinner last night at the Yusupov, in Stalin’s villa, they all got drunk. They always get drunk, that is how Stalin likes it. When men drink, they talk. And Stalin listens.”

  “You were there?”

  “Of course not. But many others were. They listen, too.”

  “Servants.”

  Nowak nodded. “It is always same way. Stalin, Molotov, and others play drinking games. They bet. Stupid things, like guessing what temperature is outside or number of girls Beria screws last month. Every time they get wrong answer, they must drink. That is how Russia is ruled, Mr. Churchill, with fear and pepper vodka. So they get drunk—Molotov and Beria always are very drunk—and they talk about Lublin. Stalin says they are most wonderful people, these Poles of Lublin, and Beria asks how any Pole who still breathes can be wonderful. Stalin says it is because Lublin Poles always agree with him. For instance, he asks Lublin Poles what they think of fresh air. They say it is good thing. But if Stalin then says no, it is not good thing, they hold meeting of central committee to denounce fresh airism and declare fresh air is counter-revolutionary. So when Beria hears this, he says to Stalin that next time he must tell them not to—I am sorry, I do not know correct English word. For using lavatory. Emptying themselves. Order them not to use lavatory, Beria says. Then in one week, Polish problem will be completely solved.”

  To Churchill, the tale had the depressing ring of truth. “But they are still coming, the Lublin Poles. After all, it was Stalin who suggested it.”

  “Last night, Stalin makes toast to Lublin Poles. Says they are l
ike dirty laundry. They will only be found on day after guests have gone.”

  “But why?” Churchill demanded, exasperated by the riddle, yet even as he raised the question he knew its answer. Delay. Indecision. Matters put off. Every passing hour played into Stalin’s hands, gave him a firmer grip. They had already been here four days, and still nothing was decided. “Are you trying to tell me that I am being played for a fool?” he muttered.

  “You come here to make a deal with Stalin. That is enough.”

  “What am I supposed to do?” Churchill’s voice rose in frustration. “I come here to help, yet every Pole I meet has a different story and a cross-purpose. How is it possible to help those who refuse to help themselves?”

  “Every foreigner in Christendom comes to help Poles sort out their problems. But throughout our history it is foreigners who are the problem. Foreigners like you, Mr. Churchill.”

  “Rot and nonsense! You accuse me? Damnit, give any two Poles more than five minutes and they’ll be on the verge of another civil war. What you’ve said is not only wretchedly ungrateful but more than a little bloody arrogant.”

  “Which is overwhelmed by your own arrogance to believe you can come here without making matters worse!”

  “How dare you?”

  “You come saying you will save Poland. With words. And you will sign paper saying it is saved. But Poland will not be saved and soon whole world will know your words are lies!”

  The two men were squaring up to each other, their fists clenched, drawn along by the heat of their argument, when suddenly the Pole’s face melted and he started to laugh. Churchill shook with irritation. He couldn’t seem to get the measure of this insolent young man. “What’s so damnably funny?”

  “You are, Mr. Churchill. Look at you, in pink underwear, shaking all over. Is this how you will save us all?”

  As the Pole continued to laugh, Churchill made a grab for his dressing-gown, a vivid green silk affair, decorated with gold dragons. He wasn’t used to being treated like this. The bloody man was mocking him, exasperating him almost beyond sufferance. Trouble was, that didn’t necessarily make him wrong.

  “Well, Mr. Nowak, you have at least proved one thing to my satisfaction,” he said, trying to calm himself as he lassoed the silk belt round his middle.

  “What is that?”

  “You couldn’t always have been merely a plumber. Not with an attitude like yours.”

  Slowly the Pole stopped laughing, like water disappearing down a plughole. He gazed at his mangled hand, and his words came wrapped in sorrow. “Before war, before cavalry, I was concert pianist. Very fine one. It was my life, that—and my family.”

  “Oh, my dear fellow.”

  “What are two fingers when we lose our entire country?”

  “Then you will help me while I’m here in Yalta? I will do my best for your country.”

  “You cannot help my country. But I will help you—if you take me with you.”

  “I give you my word.”

  “More worthless words?”

  “The word of Winston Churchill!”

  The Pole stared ferociously for several moments before, with more than a hint of reluctance, he took the old man’s proffered hand. Then he was gone.

  Churchill sat on his bed, his head bowed. He felt exhausted and he no longer had the strength for anger. He was in a palace, but it was also a prison and he had grown to hate this place. He had come to Yalta in the guise of one of the most mighty men on the planet, yet the young Pole had made him realize that it was little more than a sham. In truth he was being left behind. There was no longer any place for a donkey alongside the buffalo and the bear.

  Churchill sobbed as, little by little, he lost the battle with himself. He’d known the truth for some time, of course, but had done everything in his power to deny it. It was like growing old. A few years earlier, when the Wehrmacht stood within hours of total victory, through stubbornness so profound it had bordered on dementia, he had saved the world, yet now it seemed that nothing he might do or say would make the smallest difference. The game was as good as over, decided by the boot of the Red Army. So Roosevelt ignored him, Stalin insulted him, and even a young Pole kicked him around. This old donkey was fit for nothing but the knacker’s yard.

  And yet . . . in a world descended into confusion, there was surely some purpose in an old donkey knowing the way home, even if he had to limp his way along. And although young Nowak had spoken about the futility of words, he was wrong. Words could be meaningless, but they could also be most powerful tools, with edges of iron. It just depended on how you used them. As he sat on his bed of cares, surrounded by so many despairs, the thought grew and breathed upon the embers of his ambition. Maybe the game wasn’t completely lost. Perhaps there might still be a way through the jungle, a way home.

  He sat a long while, pondering, arguing with himself, until at last he arrived back at the point from which he had started all those years ago when he’d met his first teacher and realized what a worthless fool the man was.

  Let the world rant and rage against him. But he, Winston Churchill, was right.

  Suddenly he shook himself and jumped to his feet. “Sawyers! Where are you, man? And where in God’s name is my lunch?”

  ***

  The barrel of the carbine dug into the Kommandant’s ribs. Behind it, the partisan smiled sourly, one of the German’s cigarettes hanging from his lips. “Your choice, Herr Kommandant. But get on with it.”

  “Who are you?” Kluge demanded, playing for time.

  “Me?” A pause. It was dangerous to let a German know who you were, yet there comes a point when such things don’t matter any more. “I’m Nowak. Jan Nowak.”

  “Nowak?”

  “The mayor’s brother.”

  “I thought you looked familiar. But why didn’t I know about you?”

  The partisan’s smile grew wider, exposing a missing front tooth. “Our father was a sensible man. Three sons. One for the Church, one for town, and one for trade. That’s me, the trader.”

  “And you speak very good German.”

  “That’s prison. Got caught smuggling, so you put me up in your hostel of happiness at Moabit for a couple of years. An excellent education.”

  “And a remarkable family story.”

  “Yeah. We Nowaks are survivors, we are. Even with a rope round our necks. And you know what, Herr Kommandant? We can also read minds. Your mind. Like I know you’re pissing yourself with fear, and wondering just how many more reasons I could possibly have to hate you. So, let’s get on with it, shall we?”

  The muzzle of the carbine nudged the German towards the church door.

  “Now here’s the deal. When we get out there, you are going to order your troops to lay down their arms.”

  “They will not obey.”

  “A German refusing to obey orders?” The Pole blew smoke into the German’s face. “Or are you suggesting, Herr Kommandant, that you’re not here doing your duty but simply trying to hang my brother for fun?”

  Kluge had no answer.

  “Don’t worry, Herr Kommandant, my troops won’t open fire unless you give them cause to. And you should look on the bright side. Do as you’re told and you might all make it back home.”

  Kluge was trying to figure out his response, but inspiration eluded him, his mind was whirling as though in a dream, and suddenly he was standing on the steps of the church, blinking in the daylight and looking once more upon the scene in the grey square. He saw a scaffold. A sagging body. Troops. Townsfolk. A mass of faces, eyes intent, staring at him. Waiting.

  “First, you let the prisoners go,” Nowak’s coarse voice whispered in his ear.

  Kluge felt dizzy, confused. He also felt the muzzle of the carbine running slowly from his waist up his backbone, counting every point of his spine, like his wife’s fin
ger used to. His head swam, with memories, fears. Dully, as if from a great distance, Kluge heard the order being issued. Only vaguely did he recognize his own voice giving the command.

  The priest reached the scaffold first, hugging the legs of the doctor, trying to take his weight as he collapsed into his arms. Soon there was a tentative smile. The doctor was still alive.

  “Now we come to the interesting bit, where we see whether you’ve got more than thirty seconds left to live,” Nowak muttered. “You tell your men to lay down their arms.”

  “What reason shall I give them?”

  “You’re the shithead in charge. I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

  And Kluge threw himself into the unknown. “Men,” he began, but his throat was parched. He forced spittle round his mouth. “Men! Soldiers of the Wehrmacht! Our war in Piorun has come to an end. It is time for us to leave. To return home. To defend our families and our Fatherland.” His voice carried clearly in the cold air to every corner of the square. “So I order you all”—more spittle—“to lay down your arms. There are weapons aimed at every one of us. Resistance is useless. But there is no need for anyone to die.”

  Kluge’s soldiers were looking at each other uneasily, unconvinced. Slowly the muzzle of the carbine, which had been hidden behind Kluge’s back, was raised until it was pointing very publicly at the Kommandant’s temple. A young lieutenant stepped forward, his own weapon raised, ready to resist, only to find himself staring into the barrel of a Sten gun held by one of the underground fighters from the church. As those in the square looked on, the two men confronted each other and for a few seconds neither would give way.

  The lieutenant saw in the eyes of the bedraggled Pole only hate and the willingness to die, yet he stood his ground, trying to mirror the other man’s emotions and struggling to hide a weakness that he had begun to feel around his knees.