A Mighty Endeavor

by Stuart Slade

  “So it’s all over.” Stimson was appalled; his desperation showed through his voice very plainly. “Where do we go from here?”

  “FDR won’t accept it.” Hull spoke with flat assurance. “You’ve no idea how much he despises the Nazis. He will not tolerate the idea of them dominating Europe no matter what Joe Kennedy says. I can’t say I disagree with him on that. There are too many countries drifting towards fascism at this time. Not just in Europe but all over the world. He’s going to put them down somehow, even if it means getting us into the war by pulling some trickery or other. “

  “He can’t get us into the war, not if it’s already over. And it looks like this one is. Getting into an ongoing war is one thing, but the current war is over. Joining a war that’s already running is one thing, but us entering now will be starting an entirely new war and that’s something nobody will accept. Let’s face it, if Germany sits still now and does nothing, the war is over. We’re out and we can’t get in.” Hull’s face was grim; the other two men got a strange feeling that he was near to tears.

  “And if we do get in, we’re on our own.” Stimson was much subdued by the impact of the disastrous British decision.

  “That’s not as bad as it sounds.” Stuyvesant was thoughtful. “Economically and industrially, we can dominate pretty much the whole world. If we mobilize our production capacity, we outgun Germany by a wide margin, even with the resources they’ve just seized. The problem won’t be the equipment and military power side of this; it’ll be getting at Germany. We’re going to have to fight from bases in the continental United States. Hitting Germany from them will be interesting. We need something we’ve never had before: a war strategy that projects power into Europe from across the Atlantic, and one that presumes the absence of any form of forward basing. In fact, I don’t think anybody has ever considered doing anything like it.”

  “The Army Air Corps has been working on war plans recently. Nothing formal yet, but they’ve been talking over two scenarios. One that presumes a war against Germany that uses forward bases and one that does not.” Stimson looked skeptical. “Looks like that decision has been made for us. Cordell, I suggest you and I approach FDR and ask him to approve formal planning on a no-forward bases presumption. The Army Air Corps have already started working on the basics of how to fight a transatlantic war. I think the Air Corps call it AWPD-1. Before that even starts to be a serious plan, we have to find out what we need to destroy in order to drive Germany out of the war. Philip, I’d like you to get a small group of your fellow industrialists together, start trying to work out how the German war economy functions and determine the best way to can wreck it. Call yourselves the Economic Intelligence and Warfare Section. Assume that we’re going to be on our own. For it sure as hell looks that way.”

  Bestwood Lodge, Arnold, Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom

  “The bounder. Caving in to the Huns like this. My old friend Marshall Bond would recommend a necktie party, you can be sure of that.” Osbourne de Vere Beauclerk, 12th Duke of St Albans, was furiously angry. As an aide to Sir Douglas Haig in The Great War, he had been incensed by the idea that his age would prevent him serving in this one. Even by British aristocratic standards, the de Vere Beauclerk family might be more than slightly eccentric, but nobody had ever doubted their determination to stand by their King and Country. In fact, the family was even odder than their fellow peers of the realm realized, but that was something they kept very carefully to themselves.

  “I will have his head for this.” The rolling, sibilant tones, well lubricated by brandy and given timbre by cigars yet also diluted by exhaustion and heartbreak, echoed around the room. Winston Churchill, until six hours earlier Prime Minister of Great Britain, etc., etc., etc., glowered at the room around him. “I will have his head, taken from his shoulders in the traditional style, with axe and block. I will tell you this your Grace, as God is my witness, I will have That Man’s head.”

  “I don’t think that penalty exists under law any more.” The Duke actually highly approved of the idea of beheading Lord Halifax, but he was more interested in seeing how Churchill would react. Much would depend on Churchill in the months ahead. If the Halifax coup was to stand opposed, there would need to be a British Government in Exile and it would need a strong man to lead it into credibility. The sheer hatred and venom that had been injected into the two simple words ‘That Man’ bore witness to the fact that Churchill had the strength of purpose needed.

  “Your Grace, by the time these affairs have run their course, there will be no rule of law in our country. Does That Man not understand what he has done? There will be no peace for this realm of ours while the Nazi shadow stains Europe. All he has done is buy a few months, a few years at most, of peace before the final showdown comes. Whenever that is, our position will be worse than it is today. He has mortgaged the survival of our country for the position of Prime Minister. He calls this an armistice and says he had brought peace, but all he has done is fill our future with doubt. And he has paid for that peace with the honor that is the lifeblood of our kingdom. Did you hear what that French general De Gaulle called us? Singes capitulards du lait a boire! And the worst of it is that he is right. This day will go down in shame, Your Grace; an unbearable shame that will endure through the years until we earn redemption. And That Man’s head will be the first part of the price paid.”

  Churchill ran out of breath and took another swallow of brandy. He would have preferred a whisky-soda, but he’d taken what was available. It had been a long, hard drive up here from Oxford. The first instinct had been to head south to the Channel ports and escape to France, but the German armies were closing in on the French coast and the final result there would be worse than in England. So, he had turned north, heading for the one refuge he knew would be open to him and secure beyond doubt. The family home of the Duke of St Albans was the eye of the hurricane, somewhere he could pause and take stock of a situation that had gone so badly awry.

  “Can we put this matter right? Halifax holds his position by a thread. What he has done can be undone, surely?”

  The clinical depression, what Churchill called his black dog, overwhelmed his mind with its full force of blanketing despair. It had plagued his life; this time he could see no way it could be relieved. “Your Grace ….”

  “Osborne, please. We are in league against a powerful and ruthless enemy now; formality ill becomes such desperate straits.”

  “Osborne, I don’t like standing near the edge of a platform when an express train is passing through. I like to stand right back and if possible get a pillar between me and the train. I don’t like to stand by the side of a ship and look down into the water. A second’s action would end everything. A few drops of desperation is all that it takes. Today, I have never felt closer to the edge of that platform or looked down into water more inviting. If it hadn’t been for Cadogan’s call, I would be in a police cell now. Oh, I have no doubt it would be called protective custody and I have equally little doubt that I would not live to see the morning.

  “Yes, Osborne, there are things that we could do, but against the forces arrayed that have been set into motion, they will be little enough. The party committee will not remove Halifax from the Prime Ministry now. To do so would be to admit they are wrong and that they will not do. If they were to do that, then their whole claim to power and authority would be fatally undercut. We could stage a no-confidence motion in Parliament, but the House is disinclined to stage such votes except under the most trying of circumstances. We have already had one this year and most members will think that is enough. Even if we were to stage such a vote, I question whether we would win. That Man represents a strong body of opinion within the Conservative Party and the party will split in the face of the vote. The Labour Party will oppose him, but they are split also and many of their members decry this war. Never forget, Osborne, that Herr Hitler and Stalin have signed an alliance and the minions of the Comintern do Stalin’s bidding. Even
the Liberals are split. How those factions would combine is anybody’s guess and the outcome yet more uncertain than that. No, a vote of no confidence will not get off the ground. This was a constitutional act, Osborne, one entirely legal and we have no practical means of reversing it.”

  The Duke saw its effect in Churchill’s eyes and bearing; he made a private note to himself to have this man discretely but carefully watched tonight. “Winston, why not sleep on this problem? In the dawn, things may come to us that will not be clear tonight. Evans will show you to your room.”

  Churchill nodded, his eyes swimming with misery and despair. Then he followed the butler out of the room. As he did so, he glanced at the Duke. Beauclerk raised one finger and touched it lightly to his eye. In a relationship between families that had been handed down, father to son, for generations, that was all it took. There would be a suicide watch on their guest tonight. After they had gone, the Duke remained sitting, staring into the fireplace much as Churchill had done. Quietly, he believed that Lord Halifax had done far more damage to the fabric of the realm with this day’s work than even Churchill had realized. Beauclerk looked out of the great windows towards the lights of Nottingham. It seemed to him that the darkness was already closing in.

  CHAPTER TWO: TASK DEFINITION

  Dumbarton Avenue, Georgetown, Washington, DC, USA

  “Nell, there’s a telegram for you. From Switzerland.” It was a convention in this most unconventional of all households that telegrams from Geneva should be passed to Eleanor Gwynne first. She would take a quick look at the contents and decide whether it would cause an explosion or not. Usually, the answer was that it would; then some hasty diplomacy would be needed to prevent another row breaking out between Phillip Stuyvesant and Loki.

  “Thank you, ducks.”

  Dido Carthagina grinned conspiratorially and handed the envelope over. “Oh, it really is for me.” There was a pause and then a resigned sigh. “It’s relayed from Osborne in England. I’d better see Phillip about this right away.”

  “They’re all in the living room. Whatever is going on has caused some serious angst in there.”

  “Europe, probably. Phillip spent hours sitting, staring out the window, when he got back from Washington. Heading in?”

  “Of course, ducks.” Eleanor flashed a smile at Dido and turned to the door of the living room. Quietly, she felt a little sorry for her friend. Once, a long time ago, Dido had made a bad decision, one that had catastrophic consequences for a lot of people. She’d never trusted her own judgment since and found making even simple decisions difficult. Like whether to disturb a meeting with an important message or what to order in a restaurant. Generally, she waited for other people to make the decisions for her. It was a passive way of living and one that the gregarious and social Eleanor found hard to understand. Mentally, she shrugged the reflection off and opened the door.

  “Hi, Nell. Welcome to the plotter’s cabal.” Igrat was sprawled out on a couch, one leg hooked over the arm. The lighting in the room was dimmed right down. With Igrat’s pose and the number of empty glasses around, the place looked like a seedy night club after a very busy evening.

  Across the room, Phillip Stuyvesant was looking through a stack of papers. He glanced up and saw the envelope in Eleanor’s hand. “Message from Britain?”

  “In a way, ducks. It’s from Osborne via Geneva. In code. He says there’s trouble over there and he has something we want. That’s rare. Usually when I get a message from the family, it’s because they’ve done something foolish and need me to bail them out. I assume it came through Geneva because the lines from Britain are down. What’s going on?”

  “Halifax took over from Churchill and he’s signed an armistice with Germany.”

  Eleanor went white. “You are joking, ducks? How did that happen?”

  “We don’t know, I need a constitutional expert to explain it to me. But, the outcome is clear. The war’s over, for a while at least. This so-called armistice won’t last long. The whole situation will break out again and we’ll be right in the middle of it. I’ve just been asked to work out how Germany plans to fight the whole world single-handed.”

  “Guess what? I’m going to be the bosses secretary in a new Washington Department, the Economic Intelligence and Warfare Section.” Lillith also had a file and had reeled the name of her new appointment off without a hitch. “We’re all going to be in it, I guess.”

  Stuyvesant nodded. “We’ll be staffing the section from us. I need people there who know how I work. Igrat’s going to be our courier again. Achillea and Henry, enforcement as usual. No sneaking off into the Navy this time, Achillea.”

  “You want Mike for anything?” Mike Collins was the closest thing Igrat ever had to a long-term partner.

  Stuyvesant shook his head. “He’s a lightweight, a butterfly. He’s got nothing to offer except the ability to throw good parties. If we need one of those, we’ll call him in. Nell, we’ll need you to be a liaison with the British, especially when the Nazis turn this armistice into an occupation.”

  “You think they’ll do that?” Naamah spoke from a corner.

  “Of course. Their occupation of Europe can never be stable while Britain is unoccupied. The British Isles are the great fortress that guards Europe from an attack based in the west or south and a perfect springboard for just such an attack. Which role it plays depends on whether the people in Europe are on the British side or not. Or, in this case, whether Britain is on their side. An Armistice won’t cut it. Somehow, the Germans will occupy and not too far into the future. I can’t believe that Halifax doesn’t understand that.”

  “And then the British will fight.” Eleanor sounded saddened, more by the news that her birth country had folded than by the prospect of a war being fought on English soil for the first time in centuries.

  “And then they will fight.” Stuyvesant agreed. “All Halifax will have achieved in the end is to shift the battle from everywhere but England to England itself. The English are going to find out what it’s like to be occupied and when they do, they’ll start a resistance movement. Then they’ll find out what happens when resistance movements start fighting occupying armies. The next few years are not going to be good ones, people. What we have to worry about is working out how to strike at Germany from bases in the USA.”

  “Bombing. At least that’ll mean no more fighting in the trenches.” Eleanor sounded pleased with that. Stuyvesant shook his head.

  “Strategic bombing sounds good, but it doesn’t end with bombing armies. It goes to bombing the depots where those armies store their supplies, then the railways that supply those depots and the factories that produce the goods that are transported by the railways. It ends with the people who work in those factories and then goes beyond that to killing those workers in their homes along with their families. We’re not ending the war in the trenches, Nell; we’re extending it backwards all the way to the worker’s family in their house. This war is going to be bloody.” Stuyvesant looked out of the window. “Anybody want to bet on how long it will be before we have to have a blackout in Washington?”

  Supreme Command Headquarters, Bangkok, Thailand

  “But the Americans are opposed to us and the Japanese are not. The Japanese offer us arms and equipment; the Americans do not. The Americans criticize every move we make and the Japanese support us. Why, then should we position ourselves against the Japanese?” Marshal Plaek Pibulsonggram made the points carefully and rationally. In truth, he was afraid of the woman who was sitting in front of him with an enigmatic smile on her face. A true Thai smile, he thought, one that could mean anything and everything.

  “We’re not quite positioning ourselves against the Japanese. Not yet, at any rate. What we are doing is strengthening our economic base so that we can stand on our own feet. If we have to remain within the Japanese sphere of influence, then the proposed plan will allow us to do so on something closer to equality. If we do not, and I believe that our interests a
re elsewhere, then our plans will enable us to stand against the pressure the Japanese will place upon us. At the moment, this is a plan that grants us more freedom of action. That is all. As for the Americans, they are opposed to us because they see our nationalist movement as being akin to fascism. President Roosevelt is opposed to fascism with every fiber of his being. A part of our plan is to teach him that nationalism in a country such as ours is not fascism but a simple desire to rule our own lives. Expressed that way, the Americans will sympathize with us and come around to our side. And soon, they will be seeking every ally they can find.”

  Marshal Plaek nodded in agreement at the last comment. “But, the Japanese offer us arms, equipment, aircraft. At prices we can afford. We need them and the Americans will not sell.”

  Princess Suriyothai Bhirombhakdi na Sukothai dipped her head slightly in acknowledgement. “The Japanese offer us aircraft and weapons at a cash price we can afford. It is the political price that we cannot countenance. We are not short of goods we can sell in times of war. We produce enough rice and fish to feed most of the region. We produce gold and silver for export. We make the finest silk in the world and produce some rubber. Money is not a problem Field Marshal, not really. We are a hardy people; we can go short inside our country if doing so will make us strong. It is political strength we lack. In most of the world, people would find it very hard to find us on a map. The movement towards Japan saves in areas where we have a sufficiency and costs us where we are gravely deficient.”

  Marshal Plaek considered the logic and found it did make sense. “So, what does your Highness recommend?”

  “Field Marshal, your plans to modernize the Army must be accelerated. We are adopting German-designed equipment, mostly to be license-built at Lopburi. That equipment must enter service without delay. The German advisors we hired in the early 1930s have worked wonders with our forces and we must build on that. We must surpass our teachers, Field Marshal, and we have little time to do it in. We must adopt new ways, for the world has changed around us and the old ways are gone forever. There is an Air Force officer, Wing Commander Fuen, who has ideas on how to organize air support for the ground forces that are a remarkable advance on anything I have heard of. I believe they are worth considering.