by Jan Needle
He reached to a small table beside his armchair and pulled a fattish book from it. It was covered in brown paper and it had paper markers in it. He turned to one of them and read.
‘Thus then, on the night of the tenth of May, at the outset of this mighty battle, I acquired the chief power in the State, which henceforth I wielded in ever-growing measure for five years and three months of world war, at the end of which time, all our enemies having surrendered unconditionally or being about to do so, I was immediately dismissed by the British electorate from all further conduct of their affairs.’
Edward closed the book.
‘A strange fate for a saint, a saviour, wasn’t it?’ he said. ‘Most singular. That was in 1940, the night he took control. And the man who had made a profession of claiming his cowardly forebears in office had brought the war upon us by not scaring Hitler with a simple show of force spent five years and three months of total, violent conflict in trying to defeat him – not such an easy one to frighten after all. What the electorate did not know, although perhaps some of them guessed it, was that the Empire was finished or was about to be, and that Churchill had had to feed and nurture his other enemy, his “ally” Russia into giant capability as part of the process. If Winston had had his way, the war would have continued, the blood rivers would have flowed on, his private war would have finally been concluded. He’d probably have lost.’
Edward put the book back on the table. He rubbed his eyes.
‘But that was in the future. Churchill came to power on May 10, 1940. You’ll note the significance, naturally. Poor Hess chose to make the flight on Churchill’s anniversary, some sort of terribly misguided compliment, I wonder, the day the peace could start? Whatever, that was the date he chose. Parsifal in a motor chariot! To make peace with a man who had been craving war, who’d yearned for it, few historians dispute that any more. And who knew that Mother Russia, the monolith, was about to welcome Hitler into her man-killing embrace.’
‘But Parsifal didn’t come himself,’ said Jane. ‘He sent a substitute.’
‘A gift from heaven, yes. The real anniversary present. Because when Hess did arrive he had to die, but he’d provided us with someone we could show the world, if need be. A malleable man, a parrot, who had to speak our truth or face the consequences. Drugged and barely sane, who’d spout that Hitler was the greatest German for a thousand years, or that Churchill had to step down before there could be peace, wonderful impossibilities! Oh we were a clever bunch of lads, we thought of everything. We even fed false information through to Stalin, although it’s never been confirmed he got it. Foley did it, through Kim Philby. He said Hitler was behind the Hess flight, and Hess – the real thing, naturally – offered two alternatives. One, join Hitler in crushing Russia and divide the world between us and them, or if Churchill didn’t fancy that, let Hitler do the work with Britain staying neutral so that he only had a single front to fight on. In return he’d guarantee our colonies, no nibbling at the Empire. If Uncle Joe ever got the message he never thanked Churchill for his great forbearance in turning Hitler down!’
Jane said: ‘But surely Philby wasn’t known to be a Russian spy that early? It was years before he got found out.’
‘Foley,’ said Edward. ‘Foley was a genius. He suspected, but he wasn’t sure. But the stuff he fed him could only do us good, couldn’t it, if it did get through and anyone believed it? Most secret information’s nonsense anyway, Bill’ll tell you that. It’s swings and roundabouts, as well. Another one who turned out to be an Oxbridge traitor became the darling of the Royal family because of Hess. Anthony Blunt.’
‘The fourth man,’ said Bill.
‘Yes. Surveyor of the King’s Pictures, then the Queen’s, immune from prosecution, he even got a knighthood although they finally had to strip that from him when the scandal got too hot. Anyway, a damn good chap, knew his pictures inside out, one of the very best. Except he was a Russian spy. Even when that was confirmed, incidentally, he didn’t lose his job, still went pottering around the Palace talking about the joys of art. It’s pure Alice, wholly British, isn’t it?’
‘But Hess?’ said Jane. ‘How Hess?’
‘I told you Churchill had to blackmail George VI, didn’t I? When Hamilton blew the gaffe the week after the flight? George called Churchill in pronto, to give straight answers, I imagine. It’s a pretty fair guess that the response was icy – keep your nose out, or we’ll leak the truth about your brother’s Nazi lunacies. Wallis Simpson was a German spy, as near as dammit, and the scandal would have shattered the House of Windsor completely and forever. The French PM, Daladier, once described George’s wife – our dear Queen Mum as is – as being “an excessively ambitious young woman who would sacrifice every other country in the world to stay as queen”, and she ruled her husband with a rod of iron, so Churchill had him right across a barrel. But he offered him a sweetener. If George played ball over the Hess affair, he’d send a man to Germany after the war to collect up all the incriminating correspondence and other evidence of Edward and Simpson’s hanky-panky with the German princelings and top Nazis. Blunt.’
Jane was laughing.
‘What a disgraceful story! A Russian spy, working for MI5, goes to Germany to save the Royal family from embarrassment! And basks forever under their protection. God, the ironies in there, if one could sort them out.’
‘Oh, ironies,’ said Edward. ‘There’s certainly no shortage of ironies. The irony of trying a half-sane man for war crimes, when he spent most of it in a captivity that broke the spirit and the letter of the Geneva Convention. The irony of a Russian judge accusing him of aggression against Poland, with absolutely no proof, and then his lawyer producing the secret protocol to the Nazi-Soviet Pact which divided Poland like a cake between them. The irony that if he hadn’t been on trial that protocol might have stayed a secret forever. The war crime concept was ironic in itself, it had to be. Churchill’s first idea for dealing with the Nazi leaders was to liquidate them without a trial, which horrified the Yanks and even shocked Joe Stalin. Would that have been a war crime? War criminals are the vanquished, I’m afraid, not the victors, ever. It’s a disgraceful story, Jane, as you said, but I never had the guts to put it into print. An historian, you see. A hedonist. I was too fond of my creature comforts, the respect my peers pay me, the charms of my adoring student girls. Monstrous. Perhaps I will write it, now. There’s probably still time. I thank you, Bill, you were the spark. A pity that your unpleasant duty should have been the catalyst, but there you are, I’m afraid the war sapped my moral courage, also. We were all destroyed by it, not just the Empire. Only Churchill benefited, and that was only an illusion. Saint Winston of the Siren Suit! Like most gods he had feet of clay, and they’ll crumble soon. He never beat the Bolsheviks in any case, that must have been the hardest thing to bear, the real knife turning in the wound. Facing Stalin across the corpses of a hundred million dead, imagine it. While we faded away as a world power and Germany and Japan became the new collossi. Germany! There’s irony, if you want it. Punishment enough for him, I suppose. Punishment enough.’
Edward reached for the poker and stirred the fire, self-absorbed. He put on knobs of fuel, arranged and rearranged them. Bill said, after a few moments: ‘So what did Hess offer? That was so devastating?’
‘Basically,’ said Edward, ‘he offered Hitler. There was no peace plot in England, but there was in Germany. Indeed, there were many plots in Germany, it was a regime of plots. Hitler was at the heart of everything, but he let his henchmen fight it out among themselves, he gave them miles of leeway. His personal security was enormous, but there were gaping holes. There were some men who could get to him, and they could have tried to kill him if the game was worth it. Himmler was one of them. In fact, he’d started sending feelers to the Americans the month before the flight, about deposing his beloved boss himself. Too late, because Hess’s plans were well advanced, and when he disappeared all bets were off. Hess had Goering working with him,
and there was a third man in their plot, the teeth and claws, although I never believed his heart was in it, I believe he had his own ambitions. Reinhard Heydrich. They feared him too, I’m sure, which is why they switched Horn for Hess and went through the shooting down charade with Galland. He was an awesome, awful man, undoubtedly a genius. I helped kill him, after Hannele, and even that turned sour. We flew in Czechs from England, although the Czechs in their own country begged us not to. We killed Heydrich and the Germans destroyed Lidice.’
‘After Hannele?’ said Jane, softly. ‘But you said Hannele died in Dresden.’
He nodded. His eyes were dark.
‘I did, didn’t I?’ He touched his face. ‘Anyway, whatever. Heydrich had the men and guts and brains to murder Hitler, and Hess and Goering thought they could deal with him, if need be, later on. Hess was the negotiator, he would fly to Britain, protected in the air by Goering then by Hamilton, and if he got the go-ahead from Churchill, Hitler would be killed. Heydrich probably intended to be Führer, but he needed Goering and his air force, and Goering, like Hess, believed in peace. He’d spent two years trying to prevent war breaking out, and right up until Barbarossa he’d fed us secrets. He even gave the date, June 22, through Birger Dahlerus. Then he gave up. I believe that he was sickened by Britain’s perfidy, and by his belief that Hess was dead. Hamilton knew Goering, incidentally, did you know that? The Reichsmarschall gave him a special pre-war tour of his Luftwaffe. He was trying to impress on him the need for peace, I think. The awful carnage that would ensue. Ah well.’
Jane said: ‘So all the talk of Hess and Hitler, his being his closest friend, one of the worst Nazis and so on? Was it lies?’
‘Disinformation, really. Propaganda, based on truth. Hess had revered Hitler. In Landsberg prison, in the twenties, he told his secretary Ilse “Ich Iiebe ihn”, which incidentally didn’t stop her marrying him, later! But from 1930 onwards he became more worried by the course the movement was taking. He saw himself as the conscience of Nazism, he called himself that sometimes. But Hitler had no conscience, or it was secondary to his need for power, and Hess failed to stand up and be counted, like so many of us. By 1940 he’d reached the sticking point, though. And in 1941 he flew. May the tenth. Churchill’s anniversary. If he’d flown to Scotland with Adolf Hitler’s head in a carrier bag the result would have been the same. Life’s little ironies. He should have come on Wednesday.’
Nobody smiled at the joke. They sat in silence, watching the orange flames. Then Edward said: ‘He had a vision, you know, a recurring dream. He even told Horn about it, he passed it on to Foley more than once, in Camp Z. Hess used to see an endless line of coffins, in Germany and Britain, with crying mothers beside them. Then he’d see the mothers’ coffins, with the ghostly children weeping over them. He knew he had to come, but he couldn’t trust Heydrich, or Churchill, to let him live, so he trained poor Horn. Prescient, I’m afraid. So was Hitler. He said in 1940 that Churchill would never make a peace. Firstly because he wanted American help, and secondly because he wanted to play off Germany and Russia. As prescient as Leon Trotsky. He said more or less the same during Mr Churchill’s other war. How well they know us, these Europeans.’
It was gone one o’clock, but nobody was moving. Jane said: ‘Uncle, is this all true? As far as you can say, given that you don’t believe in history, and all that stuff.’
There was a strange noise behind them, a clicking, vaguely wet.
They turned their heads to see Aunt Erica in the doorway. She was in a white nightdress, and her face was pale and racked with pain.
‘Jane,’ she said, ‘you’re like a first-year student, child. This truth you’re after, it’s a hall of mirrors, Chinese whispers, never-never land. The whole of Teddy’s life has been a lie, the history of the century. Like, if Churchill hadn’t been there, we’d all be talking German now, or if there hadn’t been a war, Hitler would have died, or been deposed, or just collapsed, the regime was not sustainable. It’s mythology, unknowable, uncrackable. If Teddy tried to crack the myth, he’d fail, it’s a chimera.’
‘Aunt,’ said Jane. ‘I’m sorry, darling, we’ve woken you. You should be asleep.’
‘Six million Poles,’ said Erica. Her voice was faint. ‘Twenty million Russians, a million gypsies, six million Jews. Perhaps another fifty million, maybe more, no one can ever know. Winston Churchill, in one of his chipper little phrases, called it the Unnecessary War. I hope for his sake he was wrong. Oh Teddy, come to bed.’
He stood, very slowly, and turned to her. His face was almost waxen.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘We’re keeping you awake. I’m sorry, Erica.’
He walked towards his wife.
Six
They sang at Edward’s funeral. Five old men, five ancients, standing before the altar in the little church, facing the congregation. They sang ‘Abide With Me’, his favourite hymn, and one of them was badly out of tune. They had been friends of Edward’s, admirers, as were so many in the church. Nobody minded the flat notes, nobody seemed to notice.
Bill Wiley had come to the service late, deliberately. He had been told of Edward’s death by Colin Smart, with whom he was in touch from time to time, and he had not known if he would be welcome. He had driven to Alston, alone, and watched the mourners entering. When he had judged the ushers would be seated, he had gone in. Despite himself he searched for Jane’s head. It was bowed, hatless, in the front pew. Next to her was Aunt Erica. The sick woman had outlived the hearty man.
When it was over, Bill went to the graveyard. He had not intended to, but he had been unable to tear himself away. He had stood to one side, dickering, until it was too late. Jane, seeing him, had jumped. Possibly, she had gone a little pale. But she had touched Aunt Erica’s sleeve, and indicated. Aunt Erica had smiled. She was oddly radiant, she seemed birdlike and happy, not like a widow. She came across and took his hand.
‘Bill. How nice of you to come. Where have you been?’
Jane, behind her, said ironically: ‘Selling double glazing? Hallo, Bill.’
Afterwards, as the dozens of country mourners crammed into the house, they went outside. It was July, and the weather was warm and pleasant. There were no Oxford mourners there, presumably by request.
‘You nearly killed me back there at the church,’ said Jane. ‘My stomach turned right over.’
‘I’m sorry. It’s such a cliché, isn’t it? Meeting at a funeral. I hardly dared to come. Thanks for the message. I take it it was you.’
She did not reply. She was in a dark blue skirt and white shirt, bare-legged, black shoes. Bill, in a business suit, looked military now, now he no longer had a connection with the services. He had retrained, he told her. He serviced computers. It was dull. They talked awkwardly, embarrassed by the silences. They did not know quite how to voice the things they wanted to discuss.
‘Odd, though,’ said Bill. ‘Aunt Erica seems so well. Odd that Edward should have died. Do you know, I’ve never been to a funeral before. I couldn’t help thinking of him, in the box. He passed not six feet from me. Four. Inside that polished wood. I could imagine him, see him clearly.’
‘With weeping children all around,’ said Jane. ‘Lines of mothers. Don’t you remember? Hess.’
She looked at him, strangely. Bill flushed. He had been thinking of the garden hut in Spandau. An awful act of mercy.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’d forgotten. Did he write the book before he died? The truth?’
There were mourners coming through the front door. Big country men with red faces and sweat on their foreheads. Women in black, with cups of tea and plates of sandwiches. Jane moved away, towards the slope down to the river. Bill moved with her.
‘He never did,’ she said. ‘It depressed him. He’s followed it, since Number Seven died in Spandau, he’s read the newspaper reports, he’s watched the ministers wriggling in Parliament, telling lies. They’re still claiming it was Hess, of course. That he committed suicide. Lucky for some, I suppose.’
‘Thanks.’
Jane Heywood sat on a mossy rock, not caring about the mark it might leave on her dark skirt.
‘Sorry. Low blows are two a penny now, you know. You walked out on me. You never rang, you never wrote. I had a period of mourning, and you’ve just reopened the wound.’
‘Yeah.’
He sat beside her, looking where she looked, across the stream. Jane said: ‘He got a little pressure put on, as well. What he called “unofficial calls from official people”. I think the Secrets Act was mentioned. He was also told he’d got it wrong. He was told Hess didn’t die in the Reform Club, he wasn’t shot. He was told he’d been fooled deliberately, so that he wouldn’t know the secret. Hess was substituted for the man in Mytchett Place, the double. They deny that he was shot as well, they said he was sent to America, the “cousins” looked after him, the CIA.’
‘Jesus Christ. Did he believe them? Could it be true?’
‘I don’t think he cared much, in the end. The thing that mattered was that someone, or two men, risked their lives, everything, to end a bloody war and we destroyed them. They ended up war criminals, or corpses, and we ended up the heroes. I think the fact that we lost the peace, what he saw as Britain’s long decline, was his only comfort. He couldn’t be bothered in the end. To try and fight them. I might do it, though. I still feel like crying when they tell their lies. Scotland Yard thought there was a prima facie case, you know. That Prisoner Number Seven had been murdered. They put a high detective onto it, a chief superintendent, I think, not just anybody. The DPP squashed it, the government. He was ordered off the case.’