Fall of Giants (The Century Trilogy)

by Ken Follett

  --and to the sacred promises we made to each other the last time we were together.

  It was as near as he could get to mentioning their marriage. He did not want to risk someone at her end reading it and learning the truth.

  I think every day of the moment when we will meet again, and look into one another's eyes and say: "Hello, my beloved."

  Until then, remember me.

  He did not sign his name.

  He put the letter in an envelope and slipped it into the inside breast pocket of his jacket.

  There was no postal service between Germany and England.

  He left his room, went downstairs, put on a hat and a heavy overcoat with a fur collar, and went out into the shivering streets of Berlin.

  He met Gus Dewar in the bar of the Adlon. The hotel maintained a shadow of its prewar dignity, with waiters in evening dress and a string quartet, but there were no imported drinks--no Scotch, no brandy, no English gin--so they ordered schnapps.

  "Well?" said Gus eagerly. "How was my message received?"

  Walter was full of hope; but he knew that the grounds for optimism were slight, and he wanted to play down his excitement. The news he had for Gus was positive, but only just. "The kaiser is writing to the president," he said.

  "Good! What is he going to say?"

  "I have seen a draft. I'm afraid the tone is not very conciliatory."

  "What do you mean?"

  Walter closed his eyes, remembering, then quoted: " 'The most formidable war in history has been raging for two and a half years. In that conflict, Germany and her allies have given proof of our indestructible strength. Our unshakable lines resist ceaseless attacks. Recent events show that continuation of the war cannot break our resisting power . . .' There's a lot more like that."

  "I see why you say it's not very conciliatory."

  "Eventually it gets to the point." Walter brought the next part to mind. " 'Conscious of our military and economic strength and ready to carry on to the end, if we must, the struggle that is forced upon us, but animated at the same time by the desire to stem the flow of blood and bring the horrors of war to an end'--here comes the important part--'we propose even now to enter into peace negotiations.' "

  Gus was elated. "That's great! He says yes!"

  "Quietly, please!" Walter looked around nervously, but it seemed no one had noticed. The sound of the string quartet muffled their conversation.

  "Sorry," Gus said.

  "You're right, though." Walter smiled, allowing his feeling of sanguinity to show a little. "The tone is arrogant, combative, and scornful--but he proposes peace talks."

  "I can't tell you how grateful I am."

  Walter held up a warning hand. "Let me tell you something very frankly. Powerful men close to the kaiser who are against peace have supported this proposal cynically, merely to look good in the eyes of your president, feeling sure the Allies will reject it anyway."

  "Let's hope they're wrong!"

  "Amen to that."

  "When will they send the letter?"

  "They're still arguing about the wording. When that is agreed, the letter will be handed to the American ambassador here in Berlin, with a request that he pass it to the Allied governments." This diplomatic game of pass-the-parcel was necessary because enemy governments had no official means of communication.

  "I'd better go to London," Gus said. "Perhaps I can do something to prepare for its reception."

  "I thought you might say that. I have a request."

  "After what you've done to help me? Anything!"

  "It's strictly personal."

  "No problem."

  "It requires me to let you into a secret."

  Gus smiled. "Intriguing!"

  "I would like you to take a letter from me to Lady Maud Fitzherbert."

  "Ah." Gus looked thoughtful. He knew there could be only one reason for Walter to be writing secretly to Maud. "I see the need for discretion. But that's okay."

  "If your belongings are searched when you are leaving Germany or entering England, you will have to say that it is a love letter from an American man in Germany to his fiancee in London. The letter gives no names or addresses."

  "All right."

  "Thank you," Walter said fervently. "I can't tell you how much it means to me."

  { V }

  There was a shooting party at Ty Gwyn on Saturday, December 2. Earl Fitzherbert and Princess Bea were delayed in London, so Fitz's friend Bing Westhampton acted as host, and Lady Maud as hostess.

  Before the war, Maud had loved such parties. Women did not shoot, of course, but she liked the house full of guests, the picnic lunch at which the ladies joined the men, and the blazing fires and hearty food they all came home to at night. But she found herself unable to enjoy such pleasure when soldiers were suffering in the trenches. She told herself that one couldn't spend one's whole life being miserable, even in wartime; but it did not work. She pasted on her brightest smile, and encouraged everyone to eat and drink heartily, but when she heard the shotguns she could only think of the battlefields. Lavish food was left untouched on her plate, and glasses of Fitz's priceless old wines were taken away untasted.

  She hated to be at leisure, these days, because all she did was think about Walter. Was he alive or dead? The battle of the Somme was over, at last. Fitz said the Germans had lost half a million men. Was Walter one of them? Or was he lying in a hospital somewhere, maimed?

  Perhaps he was celebrating victory. The newspapers could not quite conceal the fact that the British army's major effort for 1916 had gained a paltry seven miles of territory. The Germans might feel entitled to congratulate themselves. Even Fitz was saying, quietly and in private, that Britain's best hope now was that the Americans might join in. Was Walter lounging in a brothel in Berlin, with a bottle of schnapps in one hand and a pretty blond fraulein in the other? I'd rather he was wounded, she thought, then she felt ashamed of herself.

  Gus Dewar was among the guests at Ty Gwyn, and at teatime he sought Maud out. All the men wore plus fours, tweed trousers buttoned just below the knee, and the tall American looked particularly foolish in them. He held a cup of tea precariously in one hand as he crossed the crowded morning room to where she sat.

  She suppressed a sigh. When a single man approached her he usually had romance on his mind, and she had to fight him off without admitting she was married, which was sometimes difficult. Nowadays, so many eligible upper-class bachelors had been killed in the war that the most unprepossessing men fancied their chances with her: younger sons of bankrupt barons, weedy clergymen with bad breath, even homosexuals looking for a woman to give them respectability.

  Not that Gus Dewar was such a poor prospect. He was not handsome, nor did he have the easy grace of such men as Walter and Fitz, but he had a sharp mind and high ideals, and he shared Maud's passionate interest in world affairs. And the combination of his slight awkwardness, physical and social, with a certain blunt honesty somehow amounted to a kind of charm. If she had been single he might even have had a chance.

  He folded his long legs beside her on a yellow silk sofa. "Such a pleasure to be at Ty Gwyn again," he said.

  "You were here shortly before the war," Maud recalled. She would never forget that weekend in January 1914, when the king had come to stay and there had been a terrible disaster at the Aberowen pit. What she remembered most vividly--she was ashamed to realize--was kissing Walter. She wished she could kiss him now. What fools they had been to do no more than kiss! She wished now that they had made love, and she had got pregnant, so that they were obliged to marry in undignified haste, and had been sent away to live in perpetual social disgrace somewhere frightful like Rhodesia or Bengal. All the considerations that had inhibited them--parents, society, career--seemed trivial by comparison with the awful possibility that Walter might be killed and she would never see him again. "How can men be so stupid as to go to war?" she said to Gus. "And to continue fighting when the dreadful cost in men's lives has lo
ng ago dwarfed any conceivable gain?"

  He said: "President Wilson believes the two sides should consider peace without victory."

  She was relieved that he did not want to tell her what fine eyes she had, or some such rubbish. "I agree with the president," she said. "The British army has already lost a million men. The Somme alone cost us four hundred thousand casualties."

  "But what do the British people think?"

  Maud considered. "Most of the newspapers are still pretending the Somme was a great victory. Any attempt at a realistic assessment is labeled unpatriotic. I'm sure Lord Northcliffe would really rather live under a military dictatorship. But most of our people know we're not making much progress."

  "The Germans may be about to propose peace talks."

  "Oh, I hope you're right."

  "I believe a formal approach may be made soon."

  Maud stared at him. "Pardon me," she said. "I assumed you were making polite conversation. But you're not." She felt excited. Peace talks? Could it happen?

  "No, I'm not making conversation," Gus said. "I know you have friends in the Liberal government."

  "It's not really a Liberal government anymore," she said. "It's a coalition, with several Conservative ministers in the cabinet."

  "Excuse me, I misspoke. I did know about the coalition. All the same, Asquith is still prime minister, and he is a Liberal, and I know you are close to many leading Liberals."

  "Yes."

  "So I've come here to ask your opinion as to how the German proposal might be received."

  She considered carefully. She knew who Gus represented. The president of the United States was asking her this question. She had better be exact. As it happened, she had a key item of information. "Ten days ago the cabinet discussed a paper by Lord Lansdowne, a former Conservative foreign secretary, arguing that we cannot win the war."

  Gus lit up. "Really? I had no idea."

  "Of course you didn't. It was secret. However, there have been rumors, and Northcliffe has been fulminating against what he calls defeatist talk of negotiated peace."

  Gus said eagerly: "And how was Lansdowne's paper received?"

  "I'd say there are four men inclined to sympathize with him: the foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey; the chancellor, McKenna; the president of the Board of Trade, Runciman; and the prime minister himself."

  Gus's face brightened with hope. "That's a powerful faction!"

  "Especially now that the aggressive Winston Churchill has gone. He never recovered from the catastrophe of the Dardanelles expedition, which was his pet project."

  "Who in the cabinet was against Lansdowne?"

  "David Lloyd George, secretary for war, the most popular politician in the country. And Lord Robert Cecil, minister for blockade; Arthur Henderson, the paymaster general, who is also leader of the Labour Party; and Arthur Balfour, first lord of the Admiralty."

  "I saw the interview Lloyd George gave to the papers. He said he wanted to see a fight to the knockout."

  "Most people agree with him, unfortunately. Of course, they get little chance to hear any other point of view. People who argue against the war--such as the philosopher Bertrand Russell--are constantly harassed by the government."

  "But what was the conclusion of the cabinet?"

  "There was none. Asquith's meetings often end that way. People complain that he's indecisive."

  "How frustrating. However, it seems a peace proposal won't fall on deaf ears."

  It was so refreshing, Maud thought, to talk to a man who took her completely seriously. Even those who spoke intelligently to her tended to condescend a little. Walter was really the only other man who conversed with her as an equal.

  At that moment Fitz came into the room. He was wearing black-and-gray London clothes, and had obviously just got off the train. He had an eye patch and walked with a stick. "I'm so sorry to have let you all down," he said, addressing everyone. "I had to stay last night in town. London is in a ferment over the latest political developments."

  Gus spoke up. "What developments? We haven't seen today's newspapers yet."

  "Yesterday Lloyd George wrote to Asquith demanding a change in the way we manage the war. He wants an all-powerful war council of three ministers to make all the decisions."

  Gus said: "And will Asquith agree?"

  "Of course not. He replied saying that if there were such a body the prime minister would have to be its chairman."

  Fitz's impish friend Bing Westhampton was sitting on a window seat with his feet up. "That defeats the object," he said. "Any council of which Asquith is the chair will be just as feeble and indecisive as the cabinet." He looked around apologetically. "Begging the pardon of government ministers here present."

  "You're right, though," said Fitz. "The letter is really a challenge to Asquith's leadership, especially as Lloyd George's friend Max Aitken has given the story to all the newspapers. There's no possibility of compromise now. It's a fight to the knockout, as Lloyd George would say. If he doesn't get his way, he'll have to resign from the cabinet. And if he does get his way, Asquith will go--and then we'll have to choose a new prime minister."

  Maud caught Gus's eye. They shared the same unspoken thought, she knew. With Asquith in Downing Street, the peace initiative had a chance. If the belligerent Lloyd George won this contest, everything would be different.

  The gong rang in the hall, telling guests it was time to change into evening dress. The tea party broke up. Maud went to her room.

  Her clothes had been laid out ready. The dress was one she had got in Paris for the London season of 1914. She had bought few clothes since. She took off her tea gown and slipped on a silk wrap. She would not ring for her maid yet: she had a few minutes to herself. She sat at the dressing table and looked at her face in the mirror. She was twenty-six, and it showed. She had never been pretty, but people had called her handsome. With wartime austerity she had lost what little she had of girlish softness, and the angles of her face had become more pronounced. What would Walter think when he saw her--if they ever met again? She touched her breasts. They were still firm, at least. He would be pleased about that. Thinking about him made her nipples stiffen. She wondered if she had time to--

  There was a tap at the door, and she guiltily dropped her hands. "Who is it?" she called.

  The door opened, and Gus Dewar stepped in.

  Maud stood up, pulling the wrap tightly around her, and said in her most forbidding voice: "Mr. Dewar, please leave at once!"

  "Don't be alarmed," he said. "I have to see you in private."

  "I can't imagine what possible reason--"

  "I saw Walter in Berlin."

  Maud fell silent, shocked. She stared at Gus. How could he know about her and Walter?

  Gus said: "He gave me a letter for you." He reached inside his tweed jacket and drew out an envelope.

  Maud took it with a trembling hand.

  Gus said: "He told me he had not used your name or his, for fear the letter might be read at the border, but in fact no one searched my baggage."

  Maud held the letter uneasily. She had longed to hear from him, but now she feared bad news. Walter might have taken a lover, and the letter might beg her understanding. Perhaps he had married a German girl, and wrote to ask her to keep the earlier marriage secret forever. Worst of all, perhaps he had started divorce proceedings.

  She tore open the envelope.

  She read:

  My dearest darling,

  It is winter in Germany and in my heart. I cannot tell you how much I love you and how badly I miss you.

  Her eyes filled with tears. "Oh!" she said. "Oh, Mr. Dewar, thank you for bringing this!"

  He took a tentative step closer to her. "There, there," he said. He patted her arm.

  She tried to read the rest of the letter but she could not see the words on the paper. "I'm so happy," she wept.

  She dropped her head to Gus's shoulder, and he put his arms around her. "It's all right," he said.
/>   Maud gave in to her feelings and began to sob.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  December 1916

  Fitz was working at the Admiralty in Whitehall. It was not the job he wanted. He longed to return to the Welsh Rifles in France. Much as he hated the dirt and discomfort of the trenches, he could not feel good about being safe in London while others were risking their lives. He had a horror of being thought a coward. However, the doctors insisted that his leg was not yet strong enough, and the army would not let him return.

  Because Fitz spoke German, Smith-Cumming of the Secret Service Bureau--the man who called himself "C"--had recommended him to naval intelligence, and he had been temporarily posted to a department known as Room 40. The last thing he wanted was a desk job, but to his surprise, he found that the work was highly important to the war effort.

  On the first day of the war a post office ship called the CS Alert had gone out into the North Sea, dredged up the Germans' heavy-duty seabed telecommunications cables, and severed them all. With that sly stroke the British had forced the enemy to use wireless for most messages. Wireless signals could be intercepted. The Germans were not stupid, and they sent all their messages in code. Room 40 was where the British tried to break the codes.

  Fitz worked with an assortment of people--some of them quite odd, most not very military--who struggled to decipher the gibberish picked up by listening stations on the coast. Fitz was no good at the crossword-puzzle challenge of decoding--he could never even work out the murderer in a Sherlock Holmes mystery--but he was able to translate the decrypts into English and, more importantly, his battlefield experience enabled him to judge which were significant.

  Not that it made much difference. At the end of 1916 the western front had hardly moved from its position at the beginning of the year, despite huge efforts by both sides--the relentless German assault at Verdun and the even more costly British attack at the Somme. The Allies desperately needed a boost. If the United States joined in they could tip the balance--but so far there was no sign of that.