Churchill's Hour

by Michael Dobbs

  ‘Best be sticking to proper underwear, me mother would say.’

  ‘No, you fool. It means Hitler isn’t prepared. He’s forgotten his history. He’s not ready to meet the challenge of camping out upon the frozen steppes through the onslaught of winter.’ He pulled the blanket up around his chest. ‘It is a game of Russian roulette. The invader always loses. Forfeits everything. It is the disaster of Napoleon all over again.’

  ‘Then I’d best be fetching toddy—and Nelson, too. Fer luck.’

  The Prince of Wales was the most modern of ships. Thirty-five thousand tons of marine malice that had been commissioned less than eight months previously. She was so new that when she had sailed into action against the Bismarck she still had civilian fitters on board; then she had sailed for Placentia Bay with the Prime Minister and secured her place in history. Her life had been brief, but already the Prince of Wales was the most famous battleship afloat.

  The entire world knew of her intentions—Churchill had made sure of that. Her route would take her to Freetown in west Africa and Cape Town in South Africa on her way to the Far East, with every stop accompanied by a blaze of publicity. Yet, while this greatest of British battleships was still making her way through the grinding tropical heat, on the far side of the world another naval force was being brought together in absolute secrecy.

  Tankan Bay in the bleak and frozen Kurile Islands to the north of the Japanese mainland formed an excellent rendezvous. It was well away from prying eyes and at that time of year was shrouded in mists and snowstorms. Here they gathered: the aircraft carriers Akagi and Kaga, Zuikaku, Hiryu and Soryu, the battleships Hiei and Kirishima, plus cruisers, destroyers and tankers, thirty surface ships in all, accompanied by many submarines. Last to arrive was a sixth carrier, the Shokaku. She had taken such care to fool any onlookers of her intentions that she was almost late. All these ships had slipped quietly away from their stations, one by one so as not to arouse suspicions, making it seem as though they were on independent and unexceptional missions.

  Now they had come together beneath the snowcapped mountains of the bay, the most powerful carrier strike force ever assembled, swallowed up by the vastness of the cold northerly sea. As winter winds blew around them, the Japanese Navy kept complete radio silence, switched their engines to winter oil and chipped away at the accumulating ice while they waited for their orders.

  It happened somewhere between Manchester and Birmingham on the way south. They were travelling on Churchill’s new train, which made them all feel a little like royalty. The train had been put together to enable him to travel long distances in relative safety, and consisted of several panelled coaches. There was space for a dozen staff to sleep and work, a well-appointed dining room, a kitchen, diesel generator, and a carriage set aside for the exclusive use of the Prime Minister that included a bedroom, sitting room and bathroom. There was a pattern to his trips. Overnight they loitered near some convenient tunnel, just in case of an air raid, while the days were spent in broken towns, witnessing scenes that were as harrowing as any in London, and trying to reassure the inhabitants. Everywhere his presence seemed to revive them, just as their response seemed to lift him from his own sorrows. He delivered impromptu speeches through a megaphone, conducted chaotic walks through pressing crowds, his cigar clamped firmly in his jaw and his hat raised upon his stick for all to see, just as they expected. ‘Never, never, never let us be downhearted,’ he had told them that morning. ‘And if the Luftwaffe insist on coming back for a return match, let’s hope next time they get the tax office!’ They were able to enjoy that. They hadn’t suffered as much as the East End of London.

  Clemmie had been unwell, so he had asked Pamela to accompany him. While she was on the trip she had taken the opportunity to visit Randolph’s constituency at Preston—‘Just to remind you that we Churchills haven’t forgotten,’ she had told them.

  Yet, back in the privacy of his own carriage, the old man’s confidence seemed to wane and the brightness melted from his eyes. Something was disturbing him and it was digging away at his confidence.

  Pamela sat in the armchair opposite him; the rest of the company, sensitive to his mood, seemed to have discovered important work that required their attention elsewhere. For some time he said nothing, gazing sadly at the fleeting scenes of England as they flashed past the window, his coffee and his papers left undisturbed, paying Pamela no attention.

  Eventually he stirred. ‘Averell will be back in a few days.’

  ‘Will he?’ She sounded coy.

  Another mile passed before he spoke again.

  ‘He’s been away so long.’

  ‘With his wife.’ It slipped out—she hadn’t intended it to—and there was no disguising the hurt.

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘He did.’

  It hadn’t bothered her so much at first, but as the weeks apart had dragged on it had come to be more difficult for her to deal with. She couldn’t get him out of her mind, yet now the images were of him with his wife, a woman she had never seen but who somehow had managed to burn her way deep within Pamela’s imagination.

  ‘We shall have him at Chequers this weekend,’ Churchill said.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’m committed elsewhere.’

  ‘On his first weekend back?’

  ‘Papa, it’s over.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘Averell feels it’s inappropriate.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because of you.’

  ‘Pamela, I’m so…’

  ‘So sorry?’

  He knew his position was absurd. Another mile passed in silence. He took refuge in his coffee; he was glad to notice that Sawyers had spiked it with rum.

  ‘You seem so sad,’ he suggested.

  She shook her head defiantly.

  ‘He still writes to you, Pamela?’

  ‘Pen pals. Silly really, when there’s such a shortage of paper.’

  ‘Nevertheless, I wish you’d come this weekend.’

  ‘I don’t think that would be wise.’

  ‘Pamela, I want you to come. Very much.’ His words were slow, insistent.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You—must.’

  ‘Papa?’

  Silence. More coffee. Torment filled his eyes.

  ‘Papa, have I got this right? Do you realize what you are asking me to do?’ she whispered, incredulous.

  ‘Nothing that is not within your heart to do,’ he said ponderously. ‘I ask nothing that you would not want. But, my dear Pamela, I cannot emphasize enough how important it might be.’

  ‘Papa? Have I misunderstood? You want me to sleep with Averell.’

  He did not—could not—respond.

  ‘What sort of father are you?’ It wasn’t a taunt or a criticism, simply a question born of bewilderment.

  The train was travelling through the foothills of the Pennines. Outside the countryside was bleak, bitten by frost.

  ‘In some ways I am father to an entire country. Sometimes I must put personal feelings aside.’ He couldn’t look at her, his eyes clinging desperately to the images of his beloved country as they flashed by.

  ‘Go with Averell—for you?’

  ‘For England.’

  ‘What sort of woman do you think I am?’

  ‘Pamela…’ Suddenly he seemed tired, and very old. ‘I see you as a woman much like my own mother. A woman so full of love and the many joys of existence that your life will never be contained within just one channel—or through just one man. For myself, I have always walked a more conventional path, and never strayed from it. Whether Clemmie has been so sure of foot, I do not know and have preferred never to enquire. Ah, but my darling Mama…’ He sighed, and already his eyes had softened. ‘I remember the day when I had been sent home from school with a fever. My nanny, Mrs Everest, put me straight to bed and I wasn’t expected to rise for several days. But children can be so fickle. In the
morning I felt very much recovered, so I rose from my sickbed and came down to breakfast. Papa was away—had been away already a long time. In India. And there was another man at the breakfast table. A European called Count Charles Kinsky—I was to get to know him well. Grew to like him. Yet there they were, that first time, sharing my father’s breakfast table and…laughing. I suddenly realized it had been a long time since I’d heard my mother laugh. I wasn’t old enough to understand these things, but later, when I did, when comprehension of what I had witnessed dawned upon me and my heart flooded with all the turbulent emotions that such episodes inspire, I was always left with that sparkling, vibrant memory of my beautiful Mama and her laughter.’

  Tears were tumbling onto his waistcoat.

  ‘I loved my mother, and I loved her no less for loving others. And I grew to love her all the more for having the courage to be the woman she had to be. And you, Pamela, are so very much like my darling Mama.’

  They were both in tears now.

  ‘We Churchills are not always so very good at these family things,’ he sobbed.

  ‘No, Papa—but at least we try. And perhaps they will say we had other qualities.’

  ‘Not unless we win. At the end of the day, everything comes down to that, Pamela. Victory.’

  ‘But how will my sleeping with Averell…?’

  ‘I have asked for your absolute trust. So I feel I must show that my trust in you is absolute, too.’ He searched around to make sure they were still alone.

  ‘You see, there is something else, my darling Pamela. Something that I shall explain to you, which I beg you never, never to repeat to another soul.’

  And, as the rain began to fall, slashing its way across the window of the train and casting mean, grey shadows across the land, he leant forward and began to tell her what no one else knew.

  FOURTEEN

  Harriman’s B-17 dropped down through the clouds on the last leg of the journey from New York to Northolt. As the familiar green fields of the English countryside appeared outside the window, a knot of anticipation began to twist inside his stomach. He’d been away four weeks—too long. He’d grown used to the stimulus of living life on the edge in a Britain at war, and as a consequence had begun to develop a contempt for much of what he had found in Washington, where senatorial chickens ran headless through the farmyard in fear of a fox that hadn’t left its lair. His time at home in New York hadn’t helped. He had required a surgical operation, an abscess in his gut, and his wife had nursed him dutifully, but they were like an elderly couple sitting on the stoop of their house with nothing much to say to each other. He knew there was another man in her life, while she understood that he wanted desperately to be back in England rather than in her bed. There was no animosity or ill language, just a hollowness that, for Harriman, could only be filled by returning to the war. At home he slept on pillows of Egyptian cotton and goose down, yet it left him aching for the experience of shaking bomb dust from his hair and feeling the indescribable joy of knowing he had survived one more attempt to kill him. While he was in New York he had yearned to be back amongst this slow, stubborn race they called Britons. The last day spent with his wife had been his fiftieth birthday; there was no celebration.

  Now, from the aircraft window, he could see England, its patchwork fields, red-tiled roofs, smoking chimneys, hangars, aircraft, men, and as they dropped lower he could even pick out the colours of their uniforms. Then the wheels touched, bounced, and touched again. He was back. And the knot in his stomach began to unwind.

  An official car was chasing the aircraft as it slowed down, pulling alongside as the Boeing finally came to rest. He stepped a little wearily down the rickety ladder from the plane, one hand clamped on his hat, the other clutching his briefcase, and was glad to see an army driver waiting for him, holding open the rear door.

  He ducked his head to climb into the back and was startled to hear the voice that greeted him.

  ‘Hello, Mr Harriman.’

  ‘Pamela? But…’

  ‘I suspect you feel like a rest, but it’s off to Chequers for you. The Prime Minister insists. And as you already know, we Churchills are an insistent family.’

  The men had dined together, just the two of them, in privacy and with so much passion that Harriman soon found himself in some disarray. The old man had never seemed more pleased to see him, more eager to interrogate, and never more ardent about everything he said. Harriman felt as if he were being pounded by human artillery. The pressure was relieved only by Sawyers, who seemed more than ever assiduous, never allowing the American’s glass to empty.

  ‘The talks—with Kurusu. How are they treating him?’ Churchill demanded, slurping at his glass in impatience.

  ‘Cautiously.’

  ‘But will they concede. Will they compromise?’

  ‘Some want to, Winston. Others are more determined.’

  ‘They must not give an inch or show him any sign of weakness.’ He waved his knife like a bayonet. ‘Kick him out! Otherwise Japan will pick us off one by one. Us for a starter and you for the main course.’

  ‘They feel they have to listen, Winston.’

  ‘But they must not! To listen is to delay, and to delay is to fall into their trap. Every day that passes, Japan moves closer to war.’

  ‘There are those in Washington who argue we must grasp at even the smallest glimmering of peace.’

  ‘And by so doing they invite the most catastrophic consequences and uncompromising war. They will be betrayed, those peacemongers, by their own good intentions. Even Christ came to the point when he was forced to kick the moneylenders out of the temple. Force—the only language Tojo and his thieves will understand!’

  ‘The Senate disagrees.’

  ‘Men who have never been so proud as to allow rank failure to ruin them!’ Churchill exploded. ‘American ships are being blown out of the water and yet still they haggle about the flimsiest detail.’ He had a chicken bone in his fingers and was flicking morsels of food across the tablecloth. He was also spilling his wine; Sawyers rescued the bottle and refilled his glass, Harriman’s too.

  ‘But there are those who want to fight, Winston. Who realize we shall have to.’

  ‘And the President—what of Mr Roosevelt? He talked the other day about liberty and freedom and democracy, and how those great gifts are retained only by those who are willing to fight for them. Fine, fine words.’

  ‘Which come with big problems. Not just in the Senate, but with strikes. Coal. Steel. The labour unions have him by the balls. The President calls for more effort, they call for more pay.’

  ‘Some say this war is being decided before the gates of Moscow, but I disagree. It will be decided in Washington. And in places like Poughkeepsie and Pittsburgh.’

  ‘In their present mood, they may choose not to fight.’

  ‘Men don’t always get a choice.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘The Russians didn’t choose to fight the Nazis, Averell, any more than I choose to fight the Japanese. But I may have to, nonetheless. It’s the way of war.’

  ‘Most people in Washington think it unlikely that the Japs will attack an American target. More likely to be you.’

  ‘And if they do, if they do—will America declare war, within the hour?’

  ‘If it were left to the President alone, I think yes. But Poughkeepsie and Pittsburgh?’ Harriman shrugged.

  And so it went on throughout the meal, as if through willpower alone Churchill intended to drag America from its slough of indifference. Sawyers danced deftly around him, retrieving lost food, repairing dismembered desserts, making sure most of the wine remained in their glasses. Harriman became a little confused—there seemed to be so many glasses in front of him—it was as though he were back in the Kremlin. And, a little like Stalin, the man who was now sitting opposite him was full of vices and seemed so keen to parade them all. Yet over the months Harriman had also come to understand Churchill’s more complex virtues, his stre
ngth of vision, his relentlessness, his courage, his ability to love his country more profoundly than any man Harriman had ever met. As the dinner progressed the American grew increasingly puddle-headed—the long plane journey, or perhaps Sawyers had got him a little drunk. Yet he was so very glad to be part of this moment with the older man.

  ‘Winston,’ he said, when at last he could sneak a word into the tirade that Churchill had continued over cigars and brandy, ‘I want you to know that I am very glad to be here.’

  ‘And no man is more welcome in my home, Averell. Come!’ the old man said, throwing his soiled napkin to the floor. ‘Let us remind ourselves of how real wars are fought. We shall spend an hour in the arms of Lady Emma!’

  The wretched film, yet again. Harriman consoled himself with the thought that, in the darkness, he could sleep while Churchill wept. But Pamela was waiting for them in the Long Gallery, sitting at the other end of the sofa, reminding Harriman of things other than the war that were somehow still unresolved. He was all the more grateful for the large balloon of brandy that Sawyers placed on the table beside him. Then the lights dimmed, the film flickered, and Harriman found himself cast into another world, one he recognized only vaguely, for he began to see things in the film he had never seen before.

  Nelson, fighting to keep his troops from starvation—as Churchill had done. Impatient for the arrival of every new hour and every fresh wind. Denouncing those who would grasp at a compromise peace with the enemy. Bemoaning the fact that ‘our allies have forgotten we are fighting for their cause’. A man who had become the embodiment of everything England wanted.

  And Emma, a woman of extraordinary beauty and ambition who demanded more for herself than the role of dull and dutiful wife. ‘Married women are bestowing their favours so cheaply nowadays,’ Nelson’s son, Josiah, declared in a bar-room outburst against her, but there was nothing cheap about Emma. She was passionate, determined, calculating yet headstrong, running through the night to throw herself into the arms of her departing lover even as her wedding ring glinted in the moonlight.