Target Churchill

by Warren Adler

  “Even Providence needs an occasional helper, Mr. Churchill,” Thompson said, straight-faced.

  It was obvious to Victoria that this was a much-repeated routine between them.

  “Shall we begin, Miss Stewart?”

  Victoria braced herself in her chair, her fingers poised on the keyboard. Churchill began to dictate. She could tell even at this early stage that he had probably worked out the pattern and construction of the speech in his mind. She had the impression that he had already gone over the lines in his head, and when he spoke finally, he was merely unreeling the words solely for the benefit of the typewriter.

  She worked diligently, thankful for the many pauses. Although, his interruptions, asides, and anecdotes, as Donald had warned her, made her anxious. Apparently, he needed the diversions to stoke his mind.

  At first, she took down the words by rote, concentrating on the sentences, some of which came out in a stammer, then raging forward with such sudden passion that she could barely keep up. When a page was finished, she paused to put in another.

  “Faster, please!” Churchill snapped. “You must insert the paper faster.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  She typed at breakneck speed. At times, spent after a sudden burst, he paused and would relate an anecdote that seemed totally irrelevant to the text he was creating.

  In one such pause, he said, “Did you know, Miss Stewart, that Winnie the Pooh was named after me?”

  “Why no, sir,” Victoria said, stunned not by the assertion but by its total irrelevancy to the speech.

  “Oh, yes. The playwright, A. A. Milne, is my good friend.” Churchill chuckled. “He told me that his two-year-old son, Christopher Robin, called a toy bear he had given him ‘Pooh’ in baby talk. It was the closest he could get to ‘bear.’ But Alan thought the bear should have a name so he called him ‘Winnie’ after me.”

  He shook his head, obviously enjoying the sudden flight into nostalgia.

  “Once in the war, I instructed that lines in The House on Pooh Corner be code words for our British operatives in France for their radioing back of information. They had all grown up, you see, with Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh. Some priggish bureaucrats in Whitehall objected, but I overruled them. I told them that the Nazis would never figure it out—they have no sense of whimsy.”

  He was silent for a while then began again. She braced herself for the onslaught. The words came roaring out.

  “The Soviets have divided Europe into two halves and put up a fence….” He paused. “…An iron fence.” He shook his head. “No, strike that… a barricade.” He shook his head in frustration. “Strike that.” He mulled it over further. “Shield?” He shook his head. “Leave it blank, Miss… we’ll look it over in draft.” Then he continued, “…Has descended across the Continent. Behind the line, lie all the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, their populations now in the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high measure of control from Moscow.”

  His stammering and many hesitations made it difficult to follow, but she was certain that she could figure it out when she typed a clean copy. He shook his head, obviously dissatisfied with the phrasing.

  “Needs work,” he grumped.

  At times, he would ask her to strike out whole sentences and complain about the slowness, although she was going as fast as she could. After a while, she only typed two or three dashes to indicate the deletion.

  Throughout the dictation, Thompson calmly read the paper, looking from behind it only when something was said that particularly perked his interest. During one long burst, he listened with rapt attention, his brows creased in concentration.

  “In a great number of countries, far from the Russian frontiers throughout the world, Communist fifth columns are established and work in complete unity and absolute obedience to the directions they receive from the Communist center.”

  “If I might comment, Mr. Churchill,” Thompson interrupted. “Isn’t that inflammatory?”

  “I hope so,” Churchill replied, remarkably tolerant of Thompson’s remark, indicating the closeness of their relationship. “This must be said: it is the essential point of the exercise.”

  “With due respect, sir. There are inherent dangers….”

  Churchill shook his head and pointed at Thompson with his cigar.

  “The man’s an old worrywart, a male Cassandra. I am the very model of inflammatory,” Churchill said, offering a mischievous grin. “It is the nature of the business at hand. I am not an ostrich, Thompson.”

  He grew thoughtful for a moment then intoned:

  Hang out our banners on the outward walls;

  The cry is still ‘They come!’ Our castle’s strength

  Will laugh a siege to scorn…

  He grinned. “God help us if the Macbeth outcome repeats itself in our case.”

  “Forewarned is forearmed, Mr. Churchill,” Thompson said, retreating from his earlier comment, surrendering totally.

  “You see, I’ve rebuked him into submission.”

  Thompson shrugged and turned toward Victoria.

  “Discretion, Miss. What you hear in this room is for your ears only. And the words you are recording are for your eyes only.”

  “My keeper,” Churchill mused. “He sees conspiracies everywhere.”

  “I’ve learned that concept at your knee, Mr. Churchill.”

  Churchill sucked on his cigar and puffed deeply.

  “I’m sure Miss Stewart has been thoroughly instructed by the first secretary on the nature of her role here.”

  “Absolutely, sir,” she said, agitated by the necessity to dissimulate.

  But then, her relationship with her lover was grounded in secrecy and deception. It was indeed conspiratorial. In for a penny, in for a pound, she thought, dismissing this sudden pang of conscience. Although she was privy to the various intrigues swirling about the embassy and was reasonably informed about what was going on, she was well indoctrinated and aware of her discreet role as an embassy secretary. She had been carefully vetted and investigated by the hiring authorities at the foreign office.

  At this stage, her interest was solely and exclusively on her lover and his concerns, which she deemed in the best interest of His Majesty’s government. She felt certain that the reason for his request was exactly as stated, to protect the former prime minister from the blunders of overdramatizing and exaggeration. Besides, she felt slavishly and emotionally bound to honor Maclean’s every request in all matters.

  Of course, she was, while hardly interested in the details, fully cognizant that her boss was an advocate for good relations with the Russians. He seemed to go out of his way with his colleagues to press that point home. In his letters and in the minutes of meetings she had taken, his mantra was to maintain the wartime bond with Moscow. She felt certain that, as he had stated, he would raise the matter with Halifax or with Churchill himself if the speech raised issues contrary to the policies of the government. It had no relevance for her. What Maclean wanted, she would give him.

  Although Churchill tolerated Thompson’s interruption, it did set his mind going in yet another seemingly disjointed direction.

  “I wish I could have been more forthright at Yalta. Unfortunately, Roosevelt and Stalin were dominant, and I found my role to be that of a gadfly. Some of the byplay was appalling. Stalin, I realized, was bloodthirsty. Although he treated it as a joke after I called him on it, he was all for the assassination of all Nazis above a certain rank. He wanted to dispatch a hundred thousand on a killing spree. I wanted to regurgitate! When he asserted this, I had to leave the room.”

  He shook his head and his expression struck her as one of profound regret.

  “Franklin disagreed, of course, but not in such a public and emotional way. He truly believed that his infinite cha
rm and good humor would seduce the marshal into coming his way. Stalin played along, as I see it now. Worse, I was not as forceful on key points. The man didn’t trust me anyway, so where was the loss? We should have taken Berlin.”

  His cigar had gone out. He looked at it, and Thompson quickly obliged when he put it back in his mouth.

  “Twenty-twenty hindsight is a curse to be reckoned with. Perhaps, we can undo some of the damage,” he muttered, then shrugged and turned to face his typist, who remained poised and ready.

  But he continued to digress: “But you see, we wanted Stalin’s help with the Japanese.”

  He took a deep puff on his cigar and expelled the smoke at the side of his mouth. Then his eyes seemed to glaze over, a clear indication that his mind was elsewhere.

  “That bomb,” he said. “Can you imagine? It wiped out ninety-five percent of human life in four square miles. And that is not the end of it. We are learning about radiation sickness and its terrible effect. Nevertheless, Truman’s decision to use it was necessary. The war might have been prolonged for months, perhaps years.”

  He turned suddenly, shook his head. Victoria, by then, knew the difference between his digressions, offhand comments, and asides and the speech text. Suddenly, he plunged again into the speech.

  “It would nevertheless be wrong and imprudent to entrust the secret knowledge or experience of the atomic bomb, which the United States, Great Britain, and Canada now share, to the world organization that is now in its infancy.”

  He shook his head as if to emphasize the point, then continued, “It would be criminal madness to cast it adrift in this still agitated and disunited world. No one in any country has slept less well in their beds because this knowledge, and the method and the raw materials to apply it, are at present largely retained in American hands.”

  He paused again, obviously forming the words in his mind before expelling them. The reference to the horror of the bomb seemed to animate him and his phrases now had a pugnacious quality. He was less stammering, more relentless. Perhaps it was his delivery, but the meaning of the words did penetrate her understanding. She noted peripherally that Thompson was raptly attentive, but made no comment. He apparently knew when his interruptions would be welcome and when not.

  Churchill, totally concentrated now, continued: “I do not believe we should have all slept so soundly had the positions been reversed and some Communist or neo-fascist state monopolized for the time being these dread agencies.”

  Victoria felt chilled by his words.

  “Last time, I saw it all coming and cried aloud to my own fellow countrymen and to the world, but no one paid attention. Up until the year 1933 or even 1935, Germany might have been saved from the awful fate that has overtaken her, and we might have been spared the miseries Hitler let loose on mankind.”

  He seemed suddenly deeply troubled, hesitated, shook his head, and said, “And our tight little island might have been spared so much agony and destruction.”

  Suddenly, he turned to Victoria with a sweeping gesture.

  “‘This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.’” He cleared his throat. “John of Gaunt’s soliloquy in Richard II. I love those magical lines.”

  His eyes moistened, and taking out a large, white handkerchief from the pocket of his dressing gown, he blew his nose.

  Toward afternoon, Churchill seemed to flag.

  “I must have my bath,” he muttered.

  Victoria stiffened. Not that, she thought.

  Thankfully, Thompson summoned her to another room in the suite with a desk and typewriter. Sandwiches and tea were laid out beside it.

  “He will expect the draft of what was dictated this morning to be cleanly typed and ready when he finishes his nap.”

  Victoria eyed the pages and nodded.

  “Must I type it in verse?” she asked.

  “Only the last draft,” he replied. “We’ll begin again after lunch. Prepare to work late, Miss Stewart. The PM likes to finish a first draft so that he can work on it in bed before retiring.”

  “I understand, sir,” Victoria said.

  He started to leave, then stopped for a moment and addressed her.

  “I am sure you understand now why confidentiality is so essential.”

  They exchanged glances.

  A chill of anxiety gripped her. It had not occurred to her that Maclean’s request was such a profound betrayal of trust. She became agitated and felt a hot flush rise to her face. Thankfully, Thompson had quickly departed.

  ***

  After lunch, the routine began again. This time, Churchill was fully dressed in vested pinstripes and a polka-dot bow tie. He had piled a number of books on a table before a mirror and recited the lines from the cleaned-up copy as if he were talking to an audience, sometimes approving and sometimes disapproving.

  She had typed a carbon and inserted it into the typewriter, making changes as ordered.

  “Did you get that?” he would snap occasionally.

  “Yes, sir,” she would respond—a bit of a white lie, which she hoped to correct during his many asides.

  At times, he would interrupt his so-called rehearsal with a rebuke.

  “You are an atrocious speller, Miss Stewart. Habeas corpus is not corpse. You do know the difference?”

  “Sorry, sir.” Her stomach had knotted at the rebuke, but she remained calm. She noted that every nuance of language, every phrase, every cadence was carefully gone over, then repeated, and then gone over again. She made changes as he barked them out. This went on until it began to grow dark outside. Churchill turned to her and nodded, then turned to Thompson who had remained in the room.

  “I must have my bath,” Churchill said, moving to the bedroom.

  “I thought he had one earlier,” Victoria said, when he had gone.

  “Two a day, my dear.” Thompson paused and looked at her. “Says they are marvelously relaxing and clear the mind.”

  She made no comment and suppressed a giggle.

  “You weathered the storm. Good show!” He smiled.

  Victoria assembled the carbons and brought the pages to the typewriter in the other room and proceeded to make yet another clean copy.

  It was nearly midnight, and she had just finished typing the full first draft. Thompson’s glance washed over them as she handed him the pages. She had typed two carbons, and one was neatly tucked into the band of her panties.

  “He’ll expect you by eleven,” he said, looking at this watch.

  She was tired and nervous; not only by the work itself, but also by the heightened anxiety of knowing she was willfully disobeying an explicit order of confidentiality.

  She felt caught in the vise of a dilemma. While she loved Maclean, desperately and intensely, she felt uncomfortable about providing him with the draft of the speech.

  She had, of course, no reason to doubt her lover’s motives; he had explained the reasons.

  After being dismissed by Thompson, she went back to her office to retrieve her coat and hat and get back to her apartment near Dupont Circle. She intended to walk the distance to clear her head of the cigar smoke and the sense of anxiety that was beginning to disturb her. Her intention was to give her lover the copy in the morning.

  Taking dictation from Winston Churchill was something to be remembered and cherished. He had been portrayed as difficult but was less so than she had expected. She had found him both charming and accessible, and she was certain that she had done her job—the small spelling errors notwithstanding—with great efficiency. She felt, too, a sense of patriotic pride, knowing that she had participated in some enormously historic and important event. By then, contrary to her usual indifference to the subject matter, she had absorbed the material and knew that he would be saying something momentous, something extraordinarily important to the fate of the world.

&nb
sp; As she prepared to leave, the door to Maclean’s office opened suddenly, and her lover stood in the opening, his hair tousled.

  “I must have dozed off, darling,” he told her, beckoning her inside the office. “You look like you need a drink.”

  Seeing him, as always, filled her with strong emotions. She was totally committed to him in every way. Although startled, she was glad that he waited for her. She followed him into the office and he poured two scotches. She had already slumped into the leather couch, and he joined her and handed her the drink.

  “It was hard work, but quite exhilarating. What a fine mind and gift for words the man has.”

  “He is a true Renaissance man,” Maclean agreed, sipping his drink. “Was he difficult?”

  “As they say, his bark was bigger than his bite.” She laughed suddenly. “He takes two baths a day. Imagine!”

  “And the speech?” he asked, taking a few swallows and putting his glass on the table beside the couch.

  “It should be a real bell ringer,” she said. “Of course, he is only in his first drafts, and I’m sure there will be refinements. He is working in bed on the last draft I typed as we speak. Thompson says that tomorrow, he will probably finalize the speech, and then I’ll be typing it in verse form, as we discussed. I’ll say this for him, he’s amazingly thorough.”

  Although she was tired, the drink revived her. He took her in his arms and kissed her deeply. She fully expected and looked forward to a sexual experience for which she was fully prepared, despite her exhaustion. She caressed his crotch, felt the reaction, and started to unbutton his pants. He resisted, gently removing her hand.

  “You have a carbon copy of the speech, of course?” he said, the request casual.

  She felt a sudden stab of shame. She was betraying a trust and it made her uncomfortable, notwithstanding her betrayal of her lover’s wife. But that was different, not deliberate, like this.

  “Are you sure, Donald?” she asked.

  “About what?”