by James Philip
He had undergone half-a-dozen de-briefings, each re-examining many of the things he thought he had covered in previous sessions. The first couple of ‘debriefs’ left him exhausted but as his strength returned he had become his old, combative self and rather enjoyed the cut and thrust of the process. People tended to underestimate how much starvation, illness and being periodically beaten up tends to impair the working efficiency of the old grey matter; but a few restorative square meals, convivial company and a shot or two of antibiotics had worked wonders.
Frank Waters had only just recovered from his first encounter with The Angry Widow by the time he found himself standing in front of her a second time. Some clot had decided he had earned an MC – a Military Cross – for his troubles in Iran. He already had a VC, so what was the point of that? In any event, he had made himself as presentable as possible – as one does for these things – and turned up on parade at King’s College for the awarding of the said superfluous medal, stepped forward and found himself again gazing into those steely, topaz eyes.
The woman had seemed to be surrounded by some kind of glowing aura...
She had pinned the Military Cross on his breast, and stepped back half-a-pace, eyed the ribbons covering his heart with obvious approbation.
‘You are running out of room, Colonel Waters,” she had observed brightly.
God in Heaven he had very nearly swooned!
‘You must visit me for tea before you rush off abroad again,’ she had commanded and he had been putty in her hands.
He had been terrified that he would in some way comprehensively blot his copybook at ‘tea’ that afternoon. He might easily have done so had not Lady Patricia Harding-Grayson – apparently the Prime Ministerial chaperone and confidante – and the Thatcher twins been present. Their mother had been very keen for them to meet ‘another very brave English hero’.
Honestly and truly Francis Harold St John Waters, VC, MC and assorted other gongs he had forgotten the names of, had never met a woman like Margaret Thatcher. He did not know where to begin to describe, let alone how to come to terms with his infatuation with the woman; and it utterly bewildered the cynical, shameless womaniser that he had long ago become.
Given that in a day or so he was flying out to the Persian Gulf, where things looked ‘dicey’, to say the least, he had determined to make an attempt to do the right thing. One way and another it was high time he started doing ‘the right thing’.
Mrs S.H. Waters, Meadow Cottage, Ughill Moors, South Yorkshire.
He looked at the address for several seconds before appending the date to the heading of the letter. His hand-writing had grown less ornate, scratchier with the years, the ‘artistic temperament’ his masters at Charterhouse School had so decried in the 1930s, had been slowly knocked out of his calligraphy!
Dear Shirley...
This was a thing best kept short and sweet with a minimum of sentimentality. This he repeated silently, like a protective mantra.
You will have learned by now that I returned to England a couple of weeks ago in somewhat unlikely circumstances. I apologise for not having communicated with you sooner.
Oddly, he was sorry he had not written ‘sooner’.
Not like me at all!
He shook his head and focused on the matter in hand.
Things have been unhappy between us for many years. This has been my fault. There is nothing to be gained by dwelling on the past. Suffice to say that I wish you and young Harry all possible happiness with Eric. Eric and I have never really got on but unlike me he is a good sound fellow and I genuinely wish you both well.
No, no, no. No matter how much you want to tear the letter to bits and throw it in the bin you have to stick to your guns! Do the decent thing, man!
For once in your life, do the decent thing!
You will be interested to know that I have taken legal advice vis-a-vis our marital ‘situation’. The upshot is that under an adjunct to the emergency laws currently governing civil society many of the previous injunctions and ‘complications’ concerning the dissolution of marriages, and so forth, are not what they were prior to October 1962. Essentially, we may be divorced if I submit a written application to the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages here in Oxford confessing my many and despicable marital infidelities. This pre-supposes that you wish to be divorced; this apparently, requires a separate notarized document by your own hand. In the event that this is your wish, the divorce may be granted upon a satisfactory financial agreement being agreed between the two of us in respect of your maintenance and the costs of bringing up and educating young Harry.
He took a very deep breath.
I acknowledge that I have been remiss in providing for you and Harry in recent years. In recompense I have instructed my solicitors in Oxford, Messrs Leese and Oliver, to place in trust the unspent back pay which I have accumulated in the last years I have been abroad on foreign service. The aforementioned trust is for the purpose of paying for Harry’s future education.
He had got his second wind now.
Things were so much easier when a chap made up his mind what really mattered to him!
I should inform you that – for reasons I will not trouble you with at this time – I shall soon be retired from the Service. The powers that be have been so kind as to ensure that I will depart on a ‘full pension’. While this stipend is hardly a King’s Ransom these days, I have written to the Paymaster General’s Office here in Oxford directing that one-half of my pension should be paid in favour of you henceforth without let or hindrance, or limits of time in final settlement of any claims outstanding in respect of our divorce.
He sighed.
Please convey to Eric and young Harry my good wishes.
And signed off.
Yours obediently, sincerely...
He was a free man again.
Free to make a damned fool of himself again!
Chapter 31
Saturday 20th June 1964
Prime Minister’s Rooms, Hertford College, Oxford
Walter Brenckmann senior nodded acquaintance to William Whitelaw and Field Marshall Sir Richard Hull in the anti-room to the Prime Minister’s Private Room. The Secretary of State for Defence and the Chief of the Defence Staff were grim-faced, departing the scene as the United States Ambassador to the Court of Woodstock walked in.
Hands were shaken perfunctorily, pleasantries briefly exchanged in a tight-lipped, strained way and then Walter Brenckmann was face to face with Sir Henry Tomlinson, the Cabinet Secretary and Margaret Thatcher’s greying, most civil of Civil Service gatekeepers.
“Ambassador, thank you for coming over at such short notice.”
“I am always at the Prime Minister’s service, Sir Henry.”
“How is your lovely wife, Walter,” Sir Henry Tomlinson inquired now that the tiresome formalities were concluded.
“She has a speaking engagement at a Women’s Institute ‘gala’ this evening in Abingdon. This afternoon she was planning to visit a nursing home at Whitney.”
Joanne Brenckmann had determined to carry on spreading as much ‘goodwill’ as was humanly possible however ‘badly the President behaves’, for so long as the ‘Brenckmann family was involved in the diplomacy business’. Both husband and wife believed it was their joint role to present the ‘human face’ of their country to their British ‘friends’. They would worry about defending themselves before the House Un-American Activities Committee after rather than before, they were summoned home if and when John Fitzgerald Kennedy lost the election in November.
“The Prime Minister is just having a chat with the Secretary of State designate for Northern Ireland. That shouldn’t take too long.”
“Oh,” Walter Brenckmann had not known what to make of the rumours he had heard in the last few hours. Part of the problem was that the State Department told him nothing about anything – they already thought he had gone ‘native’ – and lately his primary ambassadorial role had been as an ap
ologist for things he did not know had happened until his hosts told him about them. It was a bizarre and dispiriting way to conduct ‘diplomacy’ and daily he reconsidered his ‘position’. “This is a little sudden...”
“I suspect that’s the way the new Northern Ireland Secretary feels about it. Lord Dilhorne’s a real brick, stepping up to the plate,” the Cabinet Secretary explained. “He was Lord Chancellor at the time of the recent war. Prior to his elevation to the peerage he was a member of Mr MacMillan’s Cabinet serving in the capacity of Attorney General for England and Wales. In those days he was just plain Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller. He’s just the man for the Ulster brief. I think he must have felt somewhat out of it lately.”
“The home rule of Northern Ireland has been suspended?” Walter Brenckmann asked artlessly in his surprise.
“Yes. Had to be done, I’m afraid. And a thing that has to be done is best done quickly, what?”
“Absolutely.”
The US Ambassador was introduced to the ashen-faced bespectacled, old-looking man who emerged from the Prime Minister’s room a few minutes later. The poor fellow looked as if he was trudging towards the gallows.
“I’d offer you a cup of coffee but the latest substitute for coffee is so unpleasant that you’d think I was trying to poison you, Walter,” Margaret Thatcher declared taking the Ambassador’s hand and guiding him to a comfortable chair. “It will have to be tea, I’m afraid.”
There had been moments during the last twenty-four hours when Walter Brenckmann had expected to see tanks on the streets of Oxford and politicians being led off to prison in handcuffs. His CIA people, jeremiads to a man, despite not being any the wiser to what was going on had got wind of rumours that the Army’s patience with the UAUK was wearing thin. His intelligence ‘experts’ had been rubbing their hands together in near glee forecasting dire ‘repercussions’.
“You must be wondering what on earth has been going on?” Margaret Thatcher put to her friend.
“Well, yes,” the man shrugged, quirking a half-smile. “And no, Margaret.”
“The Chief of the Defence Staff exercised his right to speak to me yesterday,” the Prime Minister told him. “We had a very frank and open discussion and by word and deed I was able to assure him that my Government would always listen most closely to the professional advice he was kind enough to give it. Understandably,” she continued, “certain of my colleagues feel undermined by recent events. However, one does not change one’s team on the eve of the ‘big match’.”
Walter Brenckmann nodded, held his peace.
“Tom Harding-Grayson reminded me not so long ago of something that Winston Churchill said of America,” the woman went on cheerfully.
“Oh?”
“Please don’t be offended,” the Margaret Thatcher cautioned, her eyes becoming hard, ‘but dear Winston once observed that ‘you can always count on the Americans to do the right thing,” a steely smile, “but only ‘after they've tried everything else’.”
Walter Brenckmann did not know whether to be amused or insulted.
“I would not dream of saying it to any other American in Oxford,” Margaret Thatcher said, very soberly, “but I think we are running out of time. Here in England, in the South Atlantic; certainly, in the Middle East, Walter. Please do not imagine for a minute that I do not understand, and sympathise with President Kennedy’s domestic political woes. I have no idea how I would cope with nightmares like what is going on in Chicago at the moment, or if parts of England or Wales or Scotland seemed to be slipping into the hands of secessionists. If and when I am ejected from government I will probably be allowed to disappear into obscurity, I can be fairly confident that my successor will be unlikely to want to exact physical or judicial revenge upon me or my kith and kin. Whereas, if Jack Kennedy loses in November his enemies will, one way or another do their level best to destroy him.”
She waited while a tea service was placed on a table between them.
“President Kennedy and I agreed a personal pact at Hyannis Port earlier this month. If I remain in office I will honour my side of the bargain. Now is the time for him to reciprocate.”
The US Ambassador frowned, totally confused now.
“I’m sorry...I was led to believe that the Summit was a complete failure?”
“That was part of the pact, Walter.” They were alone in the room and suddenly it was uncannily, eerily quiet. “We broke the Soviet codes in April,” the woman explained in a bare whisper. “GCHQ is currently sharing some of that intelligence with a joint NSA and the CIA task force set up to handle Jericho. Had we not had Jericho we would have abandoned the northern shores of the Persian Gulf within weeks of the Soviet invasion of Iran. Now, of course, it is too late.”
Walter Brenckmann opened his mouth but no words came.
“Furthermore, I promised President Kennedy that no British civil servant or military officer would testify before the Warren Commission until after the November Election. Insofar as the Scorpion Affair rumbles on, I will give permission for Congressmen and Senators to interview British officers under oath in the United Kingdom at a time of the House’s choosing. The action I have taken to remove the blockade of Irish ports is a token of my commitment to my side of the deal. I invited the President to broker peace in the South Atlantic and I agreed, by default, not to pursue American conglomerates for their predatory acquisitiveness in the aftermath of the October War.”
“What about the Fulbright Plan?” The Ambassador asked softly.
“That was my idea. Or rather, it was Peter Thorneycroft’s idea, if one is being honest. For all its problems it has two recommendations. It might forestall the United Kingdom’s bankruptcy for another year, and it will boost the balance sheets of the Wall Street banks who sign up for it. Presumably, this will buy off much of Wall Street’s previously very public disdain for the Kennedy Administration.”
The thing which constantly wrong-footed Walter Brenckmann about Margaret Thatcher was that she was a dazzling contradiction; brutally pragmatic and borderline mendacious one minute while capable of being almost childishly idealistic and ‘damn the torpedoes’ the next. Nothing that had happened in the last six months had dented her belief in the rightness of things. For all he knew she bitterly regretted and resented the compromises she had had to make in her Premiership; but she remained utterly resolute, implacable in her quest to get where she and her country needed to be in the future. Where an older, wiser, more seasoned political operator might already have allowed necessity and expedience to modify her convictions, she still possessed a sustaining vision that seemed very nearly impervious to hard knocks. She had had hard knocks a plenty lately. Frankly, he did not know how she kept on battering away, or had remained the angry, driven woman he had first met in Cheltenham in December.
“Please,” Margaret Thatcher suggested, “when next you speak to Secretary of State Fulbright, or the President, I would be most grateful if you would remind the Administration that the time to do the ‘right thing’, is now.”
Chapter 32
Thursday 25th June 1964
USS Kitty Hawk, 129 miles East of Muscat, Arabian Sea
It was one of those balmy nights at sea when God smiled on all mariners. After the sharp monsoon storms Carrier Division Seven had passed through after leaving Bombay seven days ago the short, steep seas had smoothed to a mirror-like, billiard table calm. In the heavens the Moon glistened off the surface of the ocean, not like a baleful overseer but as a distant nocturnal Sun perfectly lighting the way for the big grey warships.
Lieutenant-Commander Walter Brenckmann junior had come off watch at midnight, returned to his cabin to write up the journal he kept with the particulars of the last twenty-four hours, and started writing a letter home to his mother before, still restless, he had come topside to observe deck operations. Every day he was learning, becoming a better officer and he hoped, a better man. He had become too much a ‘nuclear boat man’, too imbued with a submariner’
s take on the Navy, the World, on everything in fact and that would almost certainly have become a problem in years to come.
To be out here in the Arabian Sea on the Kitty Hawk, a giant floating ‘war city’ with nearly six thousand other men, he could not but be awed by what his country was capable of when it set its mind to it. The big carriers were all about a thing strategists called ‘global force projection’; object lessons in power politics which made it strange that after departing Bombay, Carrier Division Seven had headed straight back to within easy striking distance of the Persian Gulf.
At this moment one of the carrier’s twin-turboprop Northrop Grumman E-2 Hawkeye airborne early warning, reconnaissance and electronic warfare aircraft, was loitering over southern Iran at the edge of the Abadan Defended Airspace Zone, its sophisticated electro-magnetic ‘ears’ trawling the airways for ‘intel’ deep into Iraq. To enable each Hawkeye to stay on station for extended periods one of the Kitty Hawk’s three Douglas EKA-3 Skywarriors – specially modified bombers converted into airborne re-fuelling tankers – periodically sortied to ‘top up’ the duty Hawkeye’s tanks. The British had sent up fighters to check out the first Hawkeye on station thirty-six hours ago; since then they had let the spy planes go about their business unmolested.
Even on a ship the size of the Kitty Hawk, over a thousand feet long with a flight deck so huge that it would have swallowed several whole football fields there were few places that a man could safely ‘goof off’ to watch the world going by. On a carrier a man was either on duty or he kept out of the way. Danger lurked everywhere topside as twenty-ton supersonic jets came and went, afterburners flamed, steam catapults discharged and hundreds of men moved across the vast steel stage like crouching, waving, shouting players in some insanely choreographed lethal ballet. The whole eighty thousand tons of the Kitty Hawk resounded with the thump of aircraft hitting the deck, throttles wide open in case their hooks missed a ‘wire’ ready to ‘bolt’ back into the air. The roaring scream of afterburners shook the behemoth to her keel when a pair of McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantoms rocketed off the bow catapults. Off the ship’s starboard quarter there was the constant thrumming of a Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King; airborne in a search and rescue role whenever Kitty Hawk was launching or recovering her birds.