Churchill's Hour

by Michael Dobbs

  ‘Faster, man,’ Churchill encouraged, ‘or we’ll all freeze.’

  ‘If we’re going to invite a three-ring circus every weekend, we’ll be needing more hands to help.’

  ‘What? Are you saying you can’t cope?’

  ‘I can. Boiler can’t.’

  ‘What the hell’s the boiler got to do with winning the war?’

  ‘Do yer know where Mr Hopkins goes to read his papers?’

  Churchill began to growl, his breath condensing in the slow-warming air and giving him the impression of an elderly dragon. It was bluff, and Sawyers knew it.

  ‘He goes to the bathroom,’ the servant continued.

  ‘I often read my papers in the bath.’

  ‘He’s not in the bath but in his overcoat. Only place in the whole house that’s kepping warm. So he tekks his work into the bathroom and disappears, like, for a couple of hour. Inconvenient fer other guests, so it is.’

  Hopkins was frail, American and of huge importance. Churchill thrust out his small tumbler for another shot of warming whisky.

  ‘So what are you suggesting?’

  ‘Like I say, we need help. More hands. Two more maids.’

  ‘Two?’ Churchill protested.

  ‘Two, if we’re to kepp a fire in every room and clean sheets on beds. And help poor Mrs Landemare. She’s not getting any younger.’

  Oh, but he was playing the game, and with consummate skill. Sawyers understood his master as well as any man, his foibles, his vanities, his indulgences. His meanness and his dislike of new faces, too.

  ‘We don’t need two, dammit. This is a war headquarters, not a holiday resort.’

  ‘I’m sure Mr Willkie don’t mind sleeping in a British general’s sheets, but what wi’ boiler being in such poor shape, I’m afraid there weren’t time to launder ‘em, like, before he arrived.’

  Churchill snorted in alarm. Upsetting Mrs Landemare would have consequences creeping close to the point of disaster; upsetting the Americans might take them far beyond. Hopkins was a close friend of Roosevelt, while Willkie had been his opponent in the last presidential election. They had arrived as the President’s personal emissaries—‘to check up on me’, as Churchill had grumbled in exasperation. And to check up on Britain. Roosevelt had announced the principle of Lend-Lease but now he needed to decide how much to send and to lend. Some of his advisers had been whispering in his ear that he wouldn’t be getting much of it back, that most of it might soon be falling into the clutches of the German High Command. So he had sent Hopkins and Willkie to test the temper of both the country and its wayward leader: as the President had put it to Hopkins, ‘we need to know whether the Brits will carry on fighting—and whether Churchill will ever stop.’

  Churchill knew all this, knew that his American guests had been sent to spy, and he had responded by trying to seduce and suborn them. Their conclusions—and therefore their comforts—were of immense importance. It was the opportunity Sawyers had been waiting for.

  ‘A ship lost for ha’p’orth of tar,’ he mused, ‘and a war for an unlaundered sheet.’ He shook his head in mock resignation.

  ‘One!’ Churchill proclaimed defiantly, but knowing he had lost. ‘One extra maid. That’s as far as we go.’ He glared at Sawyers. ‘And you’d better make sure she’s up to the job.’

  Oh, but she was. Sawyers had already made sure of that. A niece of Mrs Landemare’s husband. French, but almost one of the family.

  ‘I’ll do me best,’ the servant sighed, turning away to tend to the guests, and to smile.

  In the valley below, the huddle of technicians had broken and a man was waving his arm furiously. From on top of the viewing hill, an officer of the Royal Artillery returned the signal and came hurrying across to Churchill.

  ‘Permission to proceed, Prime Minister?’

  ‘Unless you’d prefer us all to freeze first.’

  And there was more waving, and scurrying to a safe distance in the valley below, followed by several tense moments of—nothing. While Churchill stamped his foot in impatience, the Americans turned and smiled graciously. The moments stretched. The senior officers seemed grim and the Ministers embarrassed. Yet suddenly, beneath them, the mists parted like a biblical sea and they saw the rocket beginning to climb into the air. It was hesitant at first, as though uncertain of its direction, the steam and smoke from its motor bursting forth in fits and starts, until it had climbed to perhaps fifty feet in height. Then the engine coughed. The rocket seemed to lose faith. It pitched over.

  It was at this point, as all seemed lost, that the machine found its life once more and roared into action. It headed straight for the group on top of the hill, leaving a trail of angry, swirling vapours behind it. The circling crows cried in alarm as everyone on the ground scattered like mice, their sticks flying, hats tumbling, all dignity gone, until with one final bullying roar the weapon embedded itself not twenty feet from where they had been standing.

  Sawyers alone had not moved. As the smoke and panic finally dissolved, the others collected their wits and fallen headgear, and rose to find him still holding a tray brimming with glasses. Not a drop had been spilled.

  Churchill was panting; he had shown surprising agility for a man of his years. As the others gathered round he waved in the direction of the stillsmouldering rocket. ‘Needs a little tweaking, don’t you think?’

  ‘Winston,’ Hopkins said, reaching for a drink, ‘if it does that to us, think what it might do to the damned Germans. You might yet win the war. Terrorize them into surrender.’

  ‘Yes, somehow cannonballs seem so much more logical. In celebration of which I think perhaps we shall watch the Nelson film tonight,’ Churchill announced.

  ‘Lucky man, was the admiral,’ Sawyers muttered as he gathered up the remaining glasses.

  ‘What are you grumbling about, man?’

  ‘A pot o’ powder and a bit o’ breeze, that’s all he ever asked. Like a personal valet, he was. Only thing he ever wanted was tools to finish the job. One extra maid. How are we supposed to manage wi’ just one extra maid?’

  ‘The tools to finish the job?’ Suddenly Churchill let out a roar of merriment and clapped the servant on the shoulder. ‘Sawyers, at times you can be brilliant. You are simply too stupid to realize the fact. Ah, but you are fortunate to serve a man like me, someone who is able to pick the diamonds out from the slag heap of your mind.’

  Sawyers stared back blankly.

  ‘Hurry up, man,’ Churchill barked. ‘We’ll be wanting luncheon in a little while.’ And with that he strode happily down the hill.

  The broadcast he made the following evening from Chequers was his first in five months. It was still being written right up to the moment of delivery. It bore no resemblance to any earlier draft, for Sawyers’ moment of insight had unleashed a flood of fresh thoughts.

  Churchill sat at his working table surrounded by the books and oil paintings that filled the walls of the Hawtrey Room, his back to the fire, his script lit by nothing more than a single bulb beneath a green shade, the atmosphere dense and theatrical, almost conspiratorial. He was still scribbling fresh thoughts in the margin of his typed script even as the sound engineer, standing in the doorway, indicated it was time. A growl grew in his throat, a little like the sound of a torpedo about to burst from its tube, and he had begun.

  He welcomed them, reassured them, drew them in, recounted to them what they already knew, but gave them fresh heart in the retelling.

  After the heavy defeats of the German Air Force by our fighters in August and September, Herr Hitler did not dare attempt the invasion of this island, although he had every need to do so and had made vast preparations. Baffled in this mighty project, he sought to break the spirit of the British nation by the bombing, first of London and afterwards of our great cities.

  He made it seem like times past. Oh, if only they were…

  It has now been proved, to the admiration of the world, and of our friends in the United States, th
at this form of blackmail by murder and terrorism, so far from weakening the spirit of the British nation, has only roused it to a more intense and universal flame than was ever seen before!

  Through the words of defiance they could hear him sipping his whisky, wetting his lips for what was to come.

  All through these dark winter months the enemy has had the power to drop three or four tons of bombs upon us for every ton we could send to Germany in return.

  If he seemed to falter a little, it was only for dramatic emphasis, to lead them on.

  We are arranging so that presently this will be rather the other way around…

  Defiance—and mockery. The universal sign that the British were not yet completely buggered.

  Meanwhile, London and our big cities have had to stand their pounding. They remind me of the British squares at Waterloo. They are not squares of soldiers. They do not wear scarlet coats. They are just ordinary English, Scottish and Welsh folk—men, women and children—standing steadfastly together. But their spirit is the same, their glory is the same, and in the end their victory will be greater than far-famed Waterloo!

  In every corner of the country, in places of work, of rest, of relaxation, even in places of suffering, chins came up and the blood flowed a little faster. But this was not to be a message simply for British ears. Thanks to Sawyers, Churchill’s words were to find both a new focus and a new audience. His words were weapons in this war, and now he aimed them directly at Americans.

  While this has been happening, a mighty tide of sympathy, of good will and of effective aid has begun to flow across the Atlantic in support of the world cause which is at stake. Distinguished Americans have come over to see things here at the front and to find out how the United States can help us best and soonest. In Mr Hopkins, who has been my frequent companion during these last few weeks, we have the envoy of the President, a President who has been newly re-elected to his august office. In Mr Wendell Willkie we have welcomed the champion of the great Republican Party. We may be sure that they will both tell the truth about what they have seen over here, and more than that we do not ask. The rest we leave with good confidence to the judgement of the President, the Congress and the people of the United States.

  He said these words, but he did not believe them. Churchill had never met the President and had grave doubts about his judgement. He didn’t trust the Congress and he knew that the last thing on earth the American people desired was to get involved in Churchill’s bloody war.

  It now seems certain that the Government and people of the United States intend to supply us with all that is necessary for victory.

  All that is necessary for victory—short of actual help. They’d sent those ancient destroyers, of course, but demanded their thirty pieces of silver in return. Many of those much-vaunted destroyers had been useless, little more than rusting barges with clappedout engines and rotting hulls—although someone had taken the trouble to ensure that the washrooms were equipped with towels and fresh soap. When would the Americans learn? You couldn’t fight a war with clean hands.

  In the last war the United States sent two million men across the Atlantic. But this is not a war of vast armies firing immense masses of shells at one another. We do not need the gallant armies which are forming throughout the American union. We do not need them this year, nor next year, nor any year that I can foresee.

  He swallowed his shame, telescope to unseeing eye, even as he uttered these profound deceits. He had no choice. Step by step, as he had explained to Randolph. He had to pretend to be at one with Roosevelt, to be alongside him, joined to him at the hip—otherwise he would never be able to lead him astray.

  In order to win the war, Hitler must destroy Great Britain. He may carry havoc into the Balkan States. He may tear great provinces out of Russia…

  Yes, an attack on Russia, that would happen some time, of that Churchill was certain. It was the nature of the Nazi beast, couldn’t restrain itself. But when? Would it be in time to save Britain?

  He may march to the Caspian; he may march to the gates of India. All this will avail him nothing. It may spread his curse more widely throughout Europe and Asia, but it will not avert his doom. With every month that passes the many proud and once happy countries he is now holding down by brute force and vile intrigue are learning to hate the Prussian yoke and the Nazi name as nothing has ever been hated so fiercely and so widely among men before. And all the time, masters of the sea and air, the British Empire—nay, in a certain sense the whole English-speaking world—will be on his track, bearing with them the swords of justice.

  ‘In a certain sense the whole English-speaking world’? In what sense, pray? Roosevelt and his Americans might pretend they were up to wielding the sword of justice, but the last place they intended to bury it was deep inside the guts of the German war machine.

  The other day President Roosevelt gave his opponent in the late presidential election a letter of introduction to me, and in it he wrote out a verse in his own handwriting from Longfellow, which he said applies to you people as it does to us. Here is the verse:

  Sail on, O Ship of State!

  Sail on, O Union, strong and great!

  Humanity with all its fears, With all the hopes of future years, Is hanging breathless on thy fate!

  Roosevelt was sending poetry and bars of soap when what Churchill wanted was guns, more guns and bloody shells! But he must turn it, use the cascade of words to excite the passions and dull their wits, to avert their gaze so that he could launch his monstrous deception…

  What is the answer that I shall give, in your name, to this great man, the thrice-chosen head of a nation of a hundred and thirty millions? Here is the answer I shall give to President Roosevelt.

  Put your confidence in us. Give us your faith and your blessing and, under Providence, all will be well. We shall not fail or falter. We shall not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of battle nor the longdrawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down.

  He paused for the briefest moment. His voice lifted.

  Give us the tools—and we will finish the job!

  Oh, it was true Churchillian splendour, rhetoric that rang around the world. Yet he meant not a word. It was a promise he never had the smallest intention of keeping. Like blossom before the frost, it would vanish before the day was done. The bombardment of words was intended for one purpose only, to encourage the Americans to move forward an inch upon a slippery slope. After that, he would drag them the other three thousand miles.

  THREE

  The blue waters of the Mediterranean had been turned into a shooting range, one in which the enemy had many more guns than the British, so the troopship conveying Randolph’s unit was required to take the long and laborious route to Egypt—round the tip of Africa and up through the Red Sea. The Glenroy was desperately overcrowded, and matters were made worse by the constant bickering that took place between the naval and army elements on board. In the view of No. 8 Commando, the captain was incompetent and soon was being referred to as ‘the bugger on the bridge’. The ship’s crew, in turn, regarded Randolph’s unit as ‘long-haired nancies’. It was partly a clash of class. The seamen were roughhanded workers—social underdogs, often from the slums—while many of those who formed No. 8 Commando had joined up straight from the bar of White’s Club in St James’s. Amongst these ill-mixed men who were crowded onto the ship, Randolph stood out most prominently of all, for no one could forget that he was somehow different, and if the point managed to slip anyone’s attention Randolph was always on hand to remind them. He and his closest friends were impossible, articulate, extravagant, impertinent, and took great pleasure in being gratuitously bloody rude. Long before the voyage was over, one of the crew had daubed a slogan on the lower deck: ‘Never in the history of humankind have so many been buggered about by so few.’

  Randolph loved his father, and perhaps too much, almost to the point of destruction. He had been brought up at his father’s table and en
couraged to be his own man, yet by insisting so stridently on his uniqueness Randolph turned himself into no more than a pale shadow. He would bicker and abuse, ignoring all criticism, just as he had learnt from Winston, but he had failed to capture the essential counterbalance, that elusive quality of grace. In any event, what can be intriguing from an old man is inexcusable from the young; what was seen as drive and determination in the father appeared as little more than bloody-mindedness in the son. And Randolph, like Winston, would never, never, never give in.

  He’d promised he would stop gambling but it was a long voyage—three weeks—cooped up on the Glenroy in the growing heat and with little else for distraction, apart from alcohol. Just like White’s Club. There was poker, roulette, chemin-de-fer every night—and for very high stakes—hell, they were probably going to die, so what did it matter? They would gamble on anything: the number of empty bottles in a barrel or the number of peas on a plate, double or nothing.

  In spite of being his father’s son, Randolph was a rotten gambler and a worse drunk. And when he was drunk he never knew when the time had come to walk away.

  In three weeks at sea, Randolph lost three thousand pounds. Enough to pay the rent on the family home until the baby was well into old age. A small fortune, even for someone who wasn’t already broke.

  Up until the baby had been born, Pamela had spent much of her time at Downing Street with Randolph’s parents. During air raids she had slept in the wine cellar, in a bunk below Winston—‘one Churchill inside me, and one Churchill above,’ as she told it. It was a relationship that drew her close to her father-in-law and at times even made Randolph’s sisters envious, for while their lives seemed always to be touched by chaos, Pamela grew fat with her child and became almost a good-luck charm for the old man as he fought to keep the bombers at bay and the invasion unlaunched. ‘You are what this war is all about,’ he once told her, placing his hand on her protruding stomach.