by E. M. DAVEY
It was a letter from Palmerston, expressing concern about French naval investment.
My Dear Russell,
It would be unwise for any English Government to shut its eyes to these symptoms, and not to make all due preparations for the gale which the political barometer thus indicates.
‘Barometer’ – an instrument for measuring atmospheric pressure, used in forecasting the weather.
“What you’re holding is nothing less than the day-to-day dissemination of thunder prophecy throughout the machinery of the state,” said Jake. “Bloody hell, just look at the language he uses. If Palmerston got any more explicit he’d be shouting out incantations to Tages himself.”
“Jake – he did get more explicit.”
In her hand was a letter Palmerston wrote to the British Ambassador at Paris, analysing a pronouncement by the French foreign minister, Thouvenel.
We must not take the language of Thouvenel as ordinances from the Book of Fate.
“He mentioned it,” said Jake. “Palmerston actually mentioned it.”
63
They found three more letters. Documents that left as much unsaid as said, by authors who knew well the secrets of the Cabinet and the British Empire.
The first was from Prince Albert to Lord Palmerston.
June 1860.
The Queen has received Lord Palmerston’s letter giving an account of the Cabinet. She is very sorry to hear Mr Gladstone cannot raise himself to a statesmanlike view, but relieved Lord Palmerston is determined to place the safety of the country above all other considerations. The Queen feels sure we must take steps.
Prince Albert.
Jake frowned. “What steps?”
The second letter was from Palmerston to Sir George Lewis, a member of his Cabinet.
November 1860
My Dear Lewis,
You broached yesterday what seems political heresy. You said you dissented from the maxim that prevention is better than cure, and that, instead of trying to prevent an evil, we ought to wait till it had happened, and then apply the remedy. I beg to submit that the prevention of evil is the proper function of statesmen. There are endless instances of conflicts which might have been prevented by timely vigour.
Yours sincerely,
Palmerston.
It recalled something Gladstone had written.
I suppose the duty of choosing the lesser evil binds me; the difficulty is to determine what the lesser evil is.
The third letter was Sir George’s response.
My Dear Palmerston,
If the evil is certain, a wise statesman will, if he can, prevent it. If the evil is proximate and can be averted, undoubtedly prevention is better than cure. The cure may be simple and inexpensive. If we do not insure systematically, we do nothing.
Believe me,
Yours very sincerely,
G.C. Lewis.
Jake had put his finger on the gossamer thread: the silvery trace of the Book of Thunder’s passage through the nineteenth century.
“Do you realise what this is?” There was an intensity in his eyes. “Do you understand what they’re saying to each other?”
“I think so …”
“First Prince Albert warns Palmerston about Gladstone’s plans. He reminds Palmerston that the Queen thought they needed to take steps. So Palmerston discussed what to do with Lewis – making clear how Britain had used the Book of Thunder to uphold the Pax Britannica. Britain wasn’t involved in a major war from the fall of Napoleon until World War One. Instead it made dozens of ‘timely’ interventions. Like – like our meddling in Sierra Leone right now.”
“And in the third letter, Lewis concedes the point,” said Jenny. “He admits that they must ‘insure systematically’.”
“Insure against the Bible-basher Gladstone. Victoria knew he would destroy the pagan texts, and to hell with the consequences. Just like the Roman Christians, burning Etruscan manuscripts in the fourth century AD.”
“But this wasn’t something Victoria could countenance,” said Jenny.
“Nope – Queen Vic wasn’t above a bit of realpolitik. She liked being top dog.”
“So what insurance was put in place?”
“I don’t know,” Jake admitted. “But Randolph Churchill did. In the 1880s he intimated the Disciplina could be found again. Don’t you remember?”
The time may be at hand when the path of honour and safety is illuminated by the light of other days. It may be that this dark cloud will pass away without breaking. I believe this storm will blow over.
Instinctively they glanced at the skylights. Rivulets of water coursed down the panes – the glass itself seemed to be flowing. The sky above was blackened and angry, like a bruise. Jake had the premonition of something fomenting up there, some outburst due to break.
Jenny touched the folio. “If there’s an answer to be found, it’s here.”
As they neared the date of Palmerston’s death, Jake sensed in the lord’s words his vitality and mental powers weakening; he had the eerie feeling that he too was a fortune teller, knowing the year Palmerston would expire and the events that would succeed him. But the only document that gave them pause was a speech he had given to rural voters at Tiverton.
The old Romans had a fable about a great wrestler, who when thrown upon the ground, mother earth gave additional vigour and he got up stronger. I hope mother earth will send me back stronger than when I came here.
“The Roman reference could be an allusion,” Jake admitted. “And the theme. This idea of losing a power, only for it to come back stronger. But more than that? It tells us nothing.”
And there Palmerston’s life and correspondence came to an end.
64
It was dusk when they emerged from Westminster Underground under a sky troubled enough to have been brewed up by Turner. Jenny’s aunt had a pied-à-terre nearby in Waterloo, but spent most of her time rusticating in Provence. If her lights were off they would break in – Jenny thought another night in hospital corridors might exhaust them to the point of making mistakes. The plan was to head west, circling through the maze of terraced streets tucked behind Millbank before grabbing a black cab over Lambeth Bridge the rest of the way.
Only they didn’t get that far.
Jake saw it in Parliament Square: a statue of George Canning, the Prime Minister in the 1820s. He was wearing a toga and holding a scroll.
But it’s so blatant.
Next to him it was Lord Derby, another Victorian Prime Minister. He also clasped a scroll and wore a mantle on his back, fringed like the hoods of Etruscan augurs. The thunder that had been building all day welled up afresh over the north-west horizon, like timpani presaging the charge in Holst’s evocation of Mars. Disraeli held a scroll as well, and he too wore a hood – like the one found in Napoleon’s baggage train at Waterloo. A scroll was in the hand of Robert Peel, founder of the modern Conservative Party and the Metropolitan Police, and with growing disquiet Jake saw how his fingers gestured towards a hooded cloak rumpled upon a Roman column.
“Do you see it, Jenny? Every one of them …”
She nodded, whispering to herself, her cheeks very white against the gloom. Wind whipped against Jake’s face, and the spire of Big Ben was a witch’s hat over a cyclopean eye.
“All of them knew!” Jake’s shout was unhinged. “It’s so obvious!”
Still the thunder grew, and Big Ben tolled through the gathering tempest. The world’s most famous clock, the world’s most famous chimes, a stone’s throw from the world’s most famous front door, with the most famous woman alive living down the road. How was such pre-eminence achieved by an unprepossessing island in the North Sea?
Jake knew.
As the thunder swelled overhead he looked between the long-dead statesmen. No Gladstone here, but Winston Churchill took pride of place, leaning on his cane and scowling at the Houses of Parliament. Next to him stood Palmerston. He held no scroll, wore no hooded garment; but one hand was stretch
ed out in supplication like the Emperor Augustus himself. And as Jake watched, the lightning struck at last.
A cataclysm of sound.
A dagger of white, horrendously close.
The lightning struck a spot somewhere behind the Treasury. Parliament Square was illuminated and the bronze eyeballs of the statesmen glared at Jake with pupils of purple flame. From Jake and Jenny’s vantage point beneath Palmerston’s plinth, the bolt passed right behind the statue’s outstretched hand, so that it looked briefly as if the lord was wielding it, a javelin of energy connecting the heavens to whatever Whitehall building the lightning had struck.
The thunder died away; the storm had made its point. The ring of statues that had seemed so alive, so knowing, were metal again. Shouts of wonderment were offered up by the tourists; the humdrum of buses and black taxis resumed. Big Ben stopped tolling.
There were more film crews than usual on College Green.
65
Extracts from Hansard:
House of Commons
Thursday 12th May
The House met at half-past Two o’clock
PRAYERS
[Mr Speaker in the Chair]
Business of the House
Ordered,
That the Speaker shall put the Questions necessary to dispose the Motion in the name of the Prime Minister relating to military intervention in Nigeria.
Mr Speaker: To move the Motion, I call the Prime Minister.
2.36pm
The Prime Minister (Mr Victor Milne): My right honourable friends, there is no disease on earth more abhorrent than Ebola – except, perhaps, that of militant Islamic extremism. Yet as I speak to you today, swathes of West Africa face both of these scourges simultaneously.
The deeds of the Islamists are well-known. Kidnapping young girls. The butchery of entire villages, for the crime of holding to their Christian beliefs. The slaying of all those who won’t sign up to this perversion of Islam, which is a religion of peace. And in Nigeria, this has been combined with the most virulent strain of Ebola yet seen. Only this morning, the World Health Organisation confirmed new cases in Kano, Gombe and Kaduna. There are 25,000 infections in northern Nigeria and half will end in death. This is the backdrop to which the Nigerian president has finally requested military and humanitarian assistance. Nigeria is a friend, an ally and a member of the Commonwealth. Ties of history and language bind us. When the Nigerian people request our help, we are compelled to agree. I urge you to support this motion.
3.14pm
The Leader of the Opposition (Ms Alison Tovey): I start by joining the Prime Minister in condemnation of the barbarity perpetrated by Boko Haram in Nigeria. I’d like to add my admiration for our valiant doctors and nurses already working there with various charities, risking their lives to halt Ebola’s spread.
Mr Speaker, surely none of us here doubt the Prime Minister’s good intentions. And this house has a noble tradition of putting unity ahead of party politics in matters of foreign policy. But the question facing us is whether a second military action in Africa within the space of eighteen months is wise; whether it adheres to the letter and spirit of international law; and whether we aren’t better advised, given recent history, to seek a full UN mandate.
So we must be clear-eyed about the bitter cost this road map to war will bring to bear on the exceptional men and women of our armed forces. And we must consider how going it alone will be seen by the international community. The Attorney General’s advice is that it must be clear there is no alternative to unilateral use of force. That is a demanding condition. I remain unconvinced it has been met.
3.16pm
The Prime Minister: I respect, of course, my Right Honourable friend’s concerns. But I simply point out to her that while the UN haggles over a resolution, people are dying. So let’s be clear, if her party votes against this resolution, each day’s delay is blood on her hands.
[Interruption]
6.58pm
Mr Elwin Knight (SNP) (Airdrie & Shotts): The Prime Minister no doubt much enjoys playing the global statesman, not to mention the recent boost in his poll ratings. But by rushing to yet another war, and at a time when Britain has set out no timetable for relinquishing government in Sierra Leone, I put this to him. Rather than a humanitarian intervention, are we not witnessing nothing less than the birth of a new British Empire?
[Interruption]
Mr Elwin Knight: I will not give way. I put it to the Prime Minister that his politics belong in the nineteenth century, not the twenty-first, and that modern Britons will be rightly ashamed of his actions.
[Interruption]
Mr Speaker: Order.
The Prime Minister: Mr Speaker, I find it somewhat rich to be lectured on Britishness by a man whose party’s sole aim is to destroy our United Kingdom.
[Interruption]
9.20pm
Mr Alex Holmes (North Wiltshire): I do not question the Prime Minister’s casus belli. It is a brave and honourable thing he proposes. I also credit the Prime Minister with his commitment to spending four per cent of GDP on defence, twice the level of our Nato allies. However my constituents, many of whom are servicemen and women, harbour grave concerns about the cost in blood which must be borne by our Armed Forces. Nigeria’s a dozen times the size of Sierra Leone. And we’re asking our brave fighting men and women to tackle a full-scale Islamic insurgency, sponsored, no doubt, by oil money from the Gulf. That means roadside bombs, suicide attacks and all the rest. How can the Prime Minister assure the house that we won’t find ourselves bogged down for a decade or more? How many troops will he commit, and above all, what is the exit strategy?
The Prime Minister: I’m sure my friend wouldn’t expect me to discuss operational details. But I do acknowledge that the shadow of Iraq and Afghanistan looms large over these proceedings. So let’s be clear – those wars were protracted, costly, and in the case of Iraq should never have happened. But does this mean Britain ought to forever abrogate its duties and responsibilities to the world? I put it to the house that Posterity would judge us most unkindly, were we to take such a course. As the Queen’s first minister, I feel keenly the weight of history on my shoulders. And I believe it’s fair to say this country’s contribution to the happiness of this world over the centuries is rivalled by none. Yes, governments of the past have made mistakes. But we must learn from those mistakes, and I hope we can call on a greater wisdom to ensure our future actions are the correct ones.
10.37pm [Noise of thunder clearly audible in the Chamber]
Dr Rupert Paige (Lib Dem) (Ceredigion): Am I alone in feeling a sense of unreality in these proceedings?
11.15pm The Leader of the Opposition: What concerns me most is that the Prime Minister still refuses to be drawn on whether a caretaker government arrangement might be countenanced in Nigeria. Therefore let me put it to him directly. For the record, Prime Minister – do you rule out a takeover in Nigeria too? Because given our colonial past, such a course would make people all around the world very uncomfortable indeed.
[Interruption]
Mr Speaker: Order, order. The house will come to order.
The Prime Minister: Mr Speaker, we live in unpredictable times. I’m sure that, on reflection, my right honourable friend will see why it would be foolhardy in the extreme for me to rule out any course of action, disagreeable or not. After all, it’s not as if any of us can see the future …
11.30pm
The House divided.
11.57pm
Mr Speaker: Order, order. The house will come to order. Mr Dennison, calm yourself please. The ayes to the right, 357. The noes to the left, 221. So the ayes have it, the ayes have it.
[Interruption]
The Prime Minister: Thank you Mr Speaker. Mr Speaker, I passionately believe in the wisdom of this house. So I am not surprised that members agree with the overwhelming case for military action. As one of my predecessors once said, in ancient times a Roman citizen could proclaim, ‘Civis Romanus sum’
and know they were protected from barbarity, where so ever they may reside. I believe that a citizen of the Commonwealth should be able to say the same, safe in the knowledge that the strong arm and the long reach of Great Britain …
66
Sir Mark Hellier KBE, Permanent Undersecretary at the Foreign Office, closed in on Walkers of Whitehall. One of three Foreign Office pubs, it had once been a bank, and the frontage with its many windows always struck Sir Mark as rather too grand for the alleyway it was tucked down. Sir Mark was flame-haired, his face intelligent but weak-chinned; a decent man, he was at Walkers to meet a mandarin from the Department for International Development. It had been decided that the vast and controversial sums Britain gave Nigeria in aid must be used more coercively. Getting the blighters to do what we tell them, his minister had put it. DFID was bound to kick back against that, hence this early parlay with his opposite number over a lubricating gin and tonic.
Walkers had a patina of boozy comfort. There were mirrors along one wall, a good selection of whiskies and a passable mural of the Palace of Westminster. The clientele was mostly civil servants and political apparatchiks with their peculiarly baby-faced look, although a few tourists had wandered in. A husband and wife from Leicestershire or somewhere, both dripping in gold. Probably ran a chain of pound shops. Three Chinese guys in brightly coloured cagoules. And …
No.
Surely not.
Jennifer Frobisher.
That March, Sir Mark had been drawn into a power struggle between the Foreign Office and Number 10. The row began after the chief of MI6 had gone over the Foreign Secretary’s head and straight to the Prime Minister with a briefing on the spy scandal that was headline news under the last government. Not knowing what his espiocracy were up to drove the minister quite mad. Chagrined, desperate to reclaim territory, the Foreign Secretary had ordered Sir Mark to learn all he could about the case. But there was a ring of steel around the files, sterile corridors in all directions. And now the awol spook had simply sauntered into a pub on Whitehall.