Churchill's Hour

by Michael Dobbs

  ‘More than ten million dead Chinese since the war started four years ago, most of them civilians. Three hundred thousand killed in Nanking in a single winter. If you want to talk about unfriendly acts, maybe we should start with that.’

  ‘Perhaps, sir, and begging your pardon’—he gave another little bow—‘you are not aware of the full facts of war.’

  ‘I guess you’re right, Mr Ambassador. I don’t know enough about war. But since I arrived in London a few days ago, I’m beginning to catch on fast.’

  ‘Perhaps, sir, you will permit me to suggest that you discuss the matter with your European friends, who have been fighting colonial wars for hundreds of years. They might be able to hasten your understanding.’

  There was another little bob, like a karate chop.

  ‘Mr Ambassador,’ the American said, refusing to use the honorific title of ‘Excellency’, ‘Americans hate all colonial wars. Which is why we insist on the right to continue sending supplies to China.’

  ‘You will forgive me, sir, if I see American history in a slightly different colour. I believe—I ask you to correct me if this is not true—that your country purchased the entire territory of Louisiana from the French.’

  ‘Not the same thing at all. Louisiana isn’t a colony, it was a natural extension of the United States.’

  ‘A very understandable argument, sir. And it was certainly closer to the United States than Alaska, which I believe you purchased later.’

  ‘The territory of Alaska was practically empty. Full of nothing but fish and ice. I think there were maybe four hundred Russians living there.’

  ‘Unlike the islands of the Philippines, which you fought for. Forty years ago. You will please forgive me if that is an inconvenient or inaccurate fact. Or the islands of Hawaii. I believe the United States annexed them at about the same time.’

  Damn, but he was good. Lady St John beamed. She hadn’t had this much fun since she had plied the then-German Ambassador, von Ribbentrop, with his own champagne and asked him to expound upon his feelings about Jews.

  ‘I will grant you, Mr Ambassador, that history has a stubborn streak,’ the American responded. ‘It doesn’t form itself into convenient straight lines. And the United States, like all nations, has a history that allows for questioning and criticism.’ The American seemed to be conceding, perhaps aware that the Japanese was preparing to chase him fully around the globe via Guam, Puerto Rico, Cuba and several other colonial contradictions. ‘But I am not concerned with history, sir. I am talking about today. And tomorrow. And the slaughter of tens of millions of innocent civilians. Whatever the cause, whatever the grievance, whatever the injustice for which redemption is sought, nothing can support such a cost.’

  ‘It is most unfortunate that today warfare carries with it such a terrible price.’

  ‘Which is why the United States has declared it will never become a combatant in this one.’

  ‘It is a most happy situation for your United States,’ the ambassador said with a smile of steel, ‘that, unlike every other nation represented around this table, you have not become involved in war. For my part, I pray most earnestly that your good fortune will continue, and that you will remain free from the curse of war.’

  ‘Hell, we don’t pick fights, Mr Ambassador. We finish ’em.’

  It was, in Lady St John’s view, a most glorious cockfight, but it had gone far enough, for the moment. There were three other courses to get through; something had to be kept in reserve.

  ‘Would you like some more, Your Excellency? Or have you had enough?’

  ‘More than enough. Thank you, Lady St John.’ He bowed, which allowed him to break eye contact with the American.

  ‘I don’t know much about English manners, Lady St John, but if it’s not being impolite, I’d love some more,’ the American said, without waiting to be asked. He’d be damned before he followed Shigemitsu. ‘It’s what the workers on my railroad would call “damned fine chow”.’ He paused only momentarily. ‘I guess that’s the Chinese influence, eh?’

  And suddenly the table was alight with a multitude of different conversations. Pamela, who had been as transfixed as Emerald at the outpouring of male hormones, was seated between the American and his ambassador. They were both tall and dark, middle-aged, with fine eyes, but there the resemblance finished. Winant was uncombed, uncertain and largely inaudible at such occasions, whereas the other man most evidently was not. And he seemed to own a railway. She placed a hand gently on his sleeve.

  ‘Forgive me, but I didn’t catch your name.’

  ‘It’s Averell Harriman.’ He smiled, a little stiffly. He gazed down at her; she knew he was struggling to keep his eyes steady. It was her dress. She’d lost almost all the weight she had gained while pregnant, but a couple of additional inches had clung to her breasts and, in this dress, they showed.

  ‘I’m Pamela Churchill.’

  ‘I know you are. I’ve already met your father-in-law. He says we must all become good friends.’

  ‘I hope you’re going to do everything he tells you.’

  Harriman laughed. ‘That’s pretty much my job description. I’ve been put in charge of the Lend-Lease operation. The President has told me to come over here and give you everything you want.’

  ‘Like Santa Claus.’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘In which case, I can promise you, we shall become very good friends indeed.’

  And suddenly there was laughter around the table, except from Shigemitsu.

  Later, he was the first to leave. Lady St John led him to the door.

  ‘Your Excellency, it’s been such a pleasure having you with us. And particularly for me. May I let you in on a little secret? It’s wonderful to be with guests of—how shall I put this?—of a similar stature. We little people should stick together, don’t you think?’

  He gave a stiff bow, and left. He did not think he would ever return.

  In reasonably rapid succession, the hallways of Chequers echoed to the sound of bath waters parting, heavy male footsteps, a female scream and the crashing of a tray laden with crockery.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ Churchill said, making puddles on the hallway carpet and trying to rearrange his towel with more discretion.

  ‘Héloise. I am Héloise,’ the young woman responded in a heavy accent, her eyes filled with horror.

  ‘And what the hell are you?’

  ‘I am the new maid.’ She was struggling to avert her eyes.

  ‘New maid. What new bloody maid?’

  ‘The new maid we agreed on, Mr Churchill.’ It was Sawyers, who had appeared as if on wings in response to the sounds of mayhem.

  ‘I told you we didn’t need one. Look at the mess she’s made.’

  ‘Well, if it’s to be a race to see who can ruin rug first, I suspect you’re in wi’ a pretty good chance yerself, zur,’ the valet replied, indicating the sodden carpet. ‘Suppose I’d better do introductions. This is Héloise. Cousin to Mrs Landemare’s husband. From Marseilles,’—his accent and lisp made a mockery of the name—‘before joining us here. And a very dangerous escape it were, too, so cook’s been telling me.’

  The girl gave a nervous bob.

  ‘And this,’ Sawyers added, turning and raising his eyebrow as though in disbelief, ‘is the Prime Minister.’

  ‘Je suis Churchill,’ the Prime Minister growled in his execrable accent. ‘I don’t like new faces. And I don’t like people who go round dropping trays and making a racket. If you’re going to make a habit of it, you’d better stay out of my way downstairs.’

  Héloise promptly burst into tears and fled. Churchill was left feeling very damp and a trifle silly.

  ‘And tell her I prefer my eggs scrambled,’ he said, stepping round the mess on the floor.

  It was the twentieth of March. Pamela’s twenty-first birthday.

  She spent it without any form of communication from Randolph.

  She sat in the rented rectory
that had meant so much to her, yet which now stared back at her like a stranger. Once it had seemed to catch every shaft of sunlight, but now it collected only draughts and dust. She thought of the many nights she had burrowed beneath the blankets, hugging a favourite bear and pretending it was Randy creeping into the bedroom rather than several degrees of frost, but those days were gone. She was twenty-one. Her first day as a legal adult. Old enough to vote. And utterly miserable.

  She ate her dinner alone in the kitchen, growing a little drunk as she dismantled one of Randolph’s prize bottles of vintage champagne. It was part of a consignment he’d been given as a wedding present by one of his chums from White’s. As she drank from a glass of the finest crystal, his photograph stared at her in reproach from its ornate silver frame—another present. She was surrounded by luxury in a house where even the mice could no longer afford to eat.

  She was by upbringing a straightforward country girl, not simple, but not sophisticated either, and when Randolph had introduced her to a new life she hadn’t at first entirely understood its rules. Only now was she beginning to realize that Randolph didn’t understand them, either. Idiot. He was still staring from his silver frame. Defiantly she raised her glass to him and uttered something very rude.

  She spent another night shivering beneath her blankets, banging her head on bloody Macaulay, before she made up her mind. They had a mountain of wedding presents—crystal decanters, a canteen of exquisite cutlery, an antique carriage clock, fine wines, Lalique figurines, modern pearls and pieces of ancient porcelain, every kind of indulgent trinket that had been given to them by their rich friends—or, more accurately, the rich friends of Randolph’s father. She put everything up for auction. Within two weeks they were gone, every last bit and bauble, including her jewellery and his watches. A month later, so was the rectory, rented out for three times the amount they were paying for it. Arrangements were made for the baby, who was provided with a nursery and nanny at Cherkley, the country home of his wealthy godfather, Lord Beaverbrook, which in turn gave Pamela the freedom to ‘do her bit’ and take a job in the Ministry of Supply. It also enabled her to take a top-floor room at the Dorchester Hotel.

  Now the Dorchester, at first sight, might have seemed an unconventional choice for a woman trying desperately to save herself from financial delinquency, but it had some surprising advantages. Many of the most powerful people in London had moved into the hotel for the duration, and Pamela knew that while she was there she would never have to pay for another meal. It also happened to be one of the safest locations in London—reinforced with steel and with a deep basement. Above all else, it was close to her father-in-law. Pamela was, after all, a Churchill, and there were benefits to be had from being related to the most powerful man in the land. One of these benefits was the substantial discount that the Dorchester offered her on their standard charges.

  As she told her incredulous friends, she was so hard up she couldn’t possibly afford to live anywhere else.

  There were many visitors that Easter weekend—not just family but generals, aides, the Australian Prime Minister, the Americans. It was not a season of peace.

  The strain had been growing for weeks. Cold winds blew from every corner of the globe and Churchill, as always impatient, interfered in everything. He grew impatient with others, showed anger at delays and was left shouting vainly at the gods who seemed to have turned their back on him.

  Every day he would examine the charts that displayed the progress of the convoys as they fought their way across the Atlantic, hurling questions at his Admiralty staff, demanding instant answers, grasping at hope. He followed not only the fate of the convoys but even individual cargoes, insisting that the machine guns, aircraft engines and fourteen million cartridges being carried from America by the City of Calcutta be unloaded on the west coast. ‘Why in blazes do they insist on running the additional risk of taking them round to the east coast?’ he demanded. ‘Are they incompetent, or simply mad?’

  Everywhere the news was bad. Bulgaria had joined the Axis, there were fears that Spain would follow. Yugoslavia stood defiant, but it would not be for long. Germany fell upon her and two days of bombing killed more than seventeen thousand civilians in the capital city, Belgrade. Everyone knew that Greece would be next. Churchill ordered British troops to be moved from Egypt to help in the defence of Greece, much to the open displeasure of his generals, but Churchill insisted. Yet even as the troops prepared to move, Rommel began a new advance in North Africa and threw the plans into chaos. The British began to retreat, but they couldn’t even manage that properly. The new trucks and tanks that had been sent to the desert kept breaking down in the sand. Churchill once again lost his temper, demanding to know whether the War Office wanted him to go and fix the bloody machines himself. ‘The Germans move forward and discover our men playing at sandcastles!’ he spat contemptuously. ‘They’ve taken two thousand British prisoners. We’ll just have to find comfort in the fact that they’ve taken three of our bloody generals as well.’

  Further east, Britain’s supply problems grew with a pro-Nazi coup in oil-rich Iraq. ‘It is just as happened in the last war,’ Churchill sighed. ‘We liberate them, then they turn on us.’

  ‘Ungrateful Arab swine,’ one aide said, but Churchill turned on him. ‘Only a fool expects gratitude in the desert!’

  Not for one moment did the light of battle leave his eyes, but it seemed to be devouring him, burning him out. At every point on the map there were new wounds. Britain was bleeding to death.

  He saw it for himself. On Good Friday he had left for a tour of the West Country in the company of the American Ambassador. They arrived in Bristol not long after the Luftwaffe had left. Churchill had walked through streets that were no longer recognizable, had watched as inhabitants with bewildered faces emerged from their hidey-holes to find their world destroyed, had spent all morning outside without once seeing the sun through the clouds of swirling smoke. The Mayor of Bristol, soot streaked upon his face, had likened his city to ancient Rome. And so it was. Ruins.

  In one corner of the city they stumbled across the remnants of a wall that had once been a row of houses. On it someone had scribbled: ‘There Will Always Be An England!’ but the message had been all but obliterated by scorch marks from the flames. From somewhere Winant found a piece of chalk and, kneeling in the dust, carefully restored the message to its original form.

  Later that day, the old man returned to Chequers deeply affected, his jaw locked in uncharacteristic silence. He seemed unable to settle. He paced relentlessly, then instructed the Coldstream Guards who were stationed in the grounds of the house to set up a firing range a little way from the house. A few sandbags, a couple of makeshift wooden targets. He wanted to do something violent. Most of the men joined him—not Vic Oliver, he hadn’t been invited—and they stood around in a light drizzle, although none seemed keen to join him as he took aim and emptied the magazine of his pistol, a Colt .45, into the target. A bullet for every fresh catastrophe of the last few days. The Atlantic, the Balkans, the deserts, the West Country. Bullet after bullet smacked home, sending splinters spitting across the lawn, and still he continued firing. A bullet for the pain of his son-in-law, Duncan Sandys, who had just been terribly injured in a car crash. Another for Sarah, who had arrived at Chequers to tell him that her marriage to Vic Oliver was falling apart.

  And the very last bullet he saved for those thoughts of failure that had begun to intrude upon him at night. He was a man who throughout his life had taken pride in his ability to sleep soundly and wake refreshed, but now devils pursued him through his dreams as well as his waking hours. A whispering campaign had begun in the darker corners of the House of Commons; mutterings about ‘midnight follies’, ‘cigar stump diplomacy’, ‘too much meddling and too many yes-men’. Things were all going hell-ward. And suddenly his aim failed and the bullet sped wide.

  ‘Anyone gonna join me?’ he demanded, his voice taut as a bowstring. No one stepped forw
ard. They all knew better than to get within snapping distance of the Black Dog. So he thrust his empty weapon at his detective, Thompson, and began striding back towards the house, his hands deep in the pockets and head bent low. Only Winant seemed willing to fall in step beside him, bending his tall frame to get nearer to the old man’s words, causing his unkempt hair to fall across his face.

  ‘So tell me, Gil, my Intelligence people suggests the Herrenvolk are lengthening the runways on many of their airfields in Poland. You heard anything about that?’

  ‘Can’t say I have,’ the American said. It made Churchill feel a little happier. It seemed he was ahead in one game, at least.

  ‘What the hell do you think they’re up to?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. Not for our benefit, I guess.’

  ‘Our’ benefit. Churchill liked that. He was beginning to warm to this diffident, angular American. His shirts were habitually crumpled and his blue overcoat a diplomatic disgrace, but the man had heart.

  ‘And it’s not for the benefit of bloody Lufthansa, either,’ the old man continued. ‘It can only be for the bombers.’

  ‘What bombers?’

  ‘The bombers they will use when they fall upon Russia.’

  ‘But Russia and Germany have a friendship pact…’

  ‘So did Cain and Abel.’

  ‘What do you think it means?’

  ‘It means the Germans are looking east, in search of bigger game. Perhaps our tiny British islands have become an irrelevance in Hitler’s eyes, a sideshow —perhaps he thinks that Winston Churchill is no longer worth the bother.’

  ‘You make it sound personal.’

  ‘Of course it’s bloody personal! He’s leaving us to die from starvation, imprisoned in our own impotence. But there might be salvation in the insult, Gil. If Germany attacked Russia, they would not dare invade these islands until they were done. It gives us time—time which we both must use.’ He stopped abruptly and grabbed the ambassador’s sleeves. ‘Don’t you see? It will change the whole nature of the war. Make it stretch around the world. Surely America must realize that it could never stay out of such a conflagration.’