Shadows of War

by Michael Ridpath

  The Prime Minister was holed below the waterline and was sinking. He had opened the debate the day before with a lacklustre performance. Criticisms had mounted during the day, culminating in a powerful speech in the evening by Leo Amery, who had wheeled out the famous quotation of Oliver Cromwell when dispatching the Rump Parliament: ‘You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!’

  Brilliant. Quite brilliant.

  Chamberlain had shipped more water the following morning. Herbert Morrison for the Labour Party had indicated that his party would regard the motion as a vote of censure, thus raising the stakes. Chamberlain had mishandled this challenge by saying that he hoped he could rely on his friends to support him. This was an error: he was swiftly losing friends, and his only hope of staying afloat was to receive support from the Parliament as a whole, not just his cronies. Lloyd George responded with a sharp, powerful speech, demanding that the Prime Minister give an example to the country of sacrifice in wartime by sacrificing his own seals of leadership. There was no doubt the old man still had his wits about him.

  Chamberlain was sinking fast.

  But there was a problem. Somehow, Churchill was wriggling free of blame for the Norwegian fiasco. Speaker after speaker was blaming Chamberlain and exonerating Churchill. The most remarkable was Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keys, Member for North Portsmouth, who, dressed in full uniform with six rows of medals and thick gold braid on his sleeves, extolled his admiration for Churchill and his desire for bold leadership.

  When Chamberlain sank, Arthur Oakford was still firmly of the view that his friend Lord Halifax would duck the opportunity to become Prime Minister. Apparently, Halifax’s stomach was giving him severe trouble at the mere thought of it. But Alston was becoming increasingly worried that if that were the case, Churchill might emerge as his successor.

  The First Lord of the Admiralty rose at ten o’clock that evening. Churchill was in an impossible position, somehow having to declare loyal support for Chamberlain while still laying the blame for the Norwegian disaster on the Prime Minister rather than himself. But he did it. Churchill was going to fight the war and win it, and he brought the House with him.

  When it came time for the division, Alston knew what he had to do. He was one of forty-one Conservative MPs to vote against his party. In the end, the government won the debate, but with a majority of only eighty-one. Given that the Conservatives had a nominal majority of over two hundred, it was a disaster.

  As Alston went to bed that night, it seemed certain that what he had been praying for for months was finally about to happen: Chamberlain was on his way out. Yet suddenly, inexplicably, it looked likely that he would be replaced as Prime Minister by the biggest warmonger of them all.

  Winston Churchill.

  40

  Mayfair, London, 9 May

  Veronica went straight from Heston Airport to the small flat in Dunraven Street she shared with a friend, and telephoned Conrad on the Suffolk number he had given her. It took a long time for the captain she spoke to to get hold of him, but eventually she heard his voice.

  ‘I’m back,’ she said.

  ‘Did you see Theo?’ Conrad asked.

  ‘I did.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  Veronica passed on Theo’s message verbatim.

  ‘But the tenth is tomorrow!’ Conrad said.

  ‘I know. Can you get hold of a general or something?’

  There was a pause on the line. ‘You’ll have to do it, Veronica. Have you ever met Van?’

  ‘You mean Sir Robert Vansittart? Once, at your parents’ house in Kensington Square. I’m not sure he would remember me.’

  ‘Remind him, Veronica. I know you can do that. Go immediately to the Foreign Office and demand to see him. Say you have a message from Holland about the invasion. Be persistent. You know how to be persistent, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course I do, darling. I’ll make him listen to me, I promise.’

  ‘Once you have spoken to Van, ring Major McCaigue on this telephone number and tell him exactly what Theo told you.’ Conrad read out the number. If Van didn’t believe Veronica, it was likely that McCaigue would.

  ‘Do you think we are too late?’ said Veronica.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Conrad. ‘But we have to try. Oh, and Veronica?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well done.’

  Veronica hung up, and ran downstairs. She found a taxi in Park Lane. ‘Whitehall, please.’

  Kensington, London

  After the excitement of the previous two days, Alston felt deflated as he made his way back to his flat in Ennismore Gardens. Arthur Oakford had just confirmed what he had feared; Halifax had turned down the premiership. Didn’t have the stomach for it, quite literally. Which meant Churchill. There seemed to be a consensus in the House that the next government should include the Labour Party, and the Labour leaders preferred Churchill to Chamberlain. Despite the disaster in Norway, the House of Commons was suddenly well disposed towards the warmonger-in-chief. Churchill was going to become Prime Minister the next day. This was not how it was supposed to be.

  He was surprised when he opened the door to his flat to see a light was on. It was past eleven o’clock. It couldn’t possibly be Dorothy down from Scotland to surprise him, could it?

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Henry!’ He smiled as Constance rushed in from the sitting room, flung her arms around her neck and kissed him.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked her.

  ‘I told my mother I was staying with a friend in town. I wanted to be with you tonight.’ She broke away from him. ‘What’s wrong? Did Halifax become Prime Minister after all?’

  ‘No,’ said Alston. ‘It’s worse than that. It’s going to be Churchill.’

  ‘But Churchill’s responsible for the mess we’re in!’

  ‘I know. But suddenly everyone loves him.’

  ‘So no Lloyd George?’

  ‘No,’ said Alston, pouring himself a Scotch with barely a splash of soda. He sat down on the sofa and Constance snuggled up close to him.

  ‘That’s awful. Will Churchill make you a minister?’

  ‘I doubt it very much,’ said Alston. ‘He knows my views on the war. I suppose he might ask me to join the government, to create a “broad church”, but I would have to refuse. I couldn’t possibly serve under him.’

  ‘Oh, my poor darling,’ said Constance. ‘That’s so unfair!’

  ‘I know,’ said Alston. It was nice to be able to briefly drop his guard with Constance.

  ‘Maybe it’s not so bad,’ said Constance.

  ‘How can it not be?’ said Alston.

  ‘You said Churchill was a fool. Maybe he will lose the war and then they’ll dump him too.’

  Perhaps Constance had a point. In a way, the biggest risk to Alston’s vision of a modern pro-German government was not Churchill, but a coalition of tired old moderates who would be able to negotiate a peace with Germany that left Britain alone to continue its path to decline and decay. That was not what Alston wanted.

  Alston wanted a strong government, with himself at the heart of it, with Lloyd George as Prime Minister and the Duke of Windsor as king. A government that was an ally of Germany, that had the strength of purpose to rule the world in partnership with Hitler, that would lead Britain to greatness once again.

  ‘Maybe the Germans will finally attack France tomorrow and knock the Frogs out of the war with one of their blitzkriegs. With Chamberlain gone and Halifax out of the picture, there will be only you left to save us all from the warmongers!’

  ‘Maybe they will,’ said Alston. He smiled and stroked Constance’s hair. Her unquestioning support helped. And although she seemed naive and ignorant of politics, in fact she had good instincts.

  Alston banished all thoughts of giving up. Next time, when Churchill slipped up, he had to be ready to move. Constance was right: that ti
me might not be very far away.

  ‘By the way, you don’t have to worry about Conrad de Lancey anymore,’ Constance said. ‘I saw Joe Sullivan today and gave him the money. He’ll make sure de Lancey won’t be asking any more difficult questions about Lord Copthorne or me or the Duke of Windsor. We just need to alert Joe when de Lancey is back in London.’

  ‘Sullivan agreed to do it just like that?’

  ‘Yes. It wasn’t just for the money. I explained that de Lancey was against the cause.’

  ‘It’s more than that,’ said Alston. ‘I have heard de Lancey has been asking a lot of awkward questions, and unless we do something very soon he will find some very awkward answers. He’s getting very close.’

  ‘Well, Joe will put a stop to that.’

  ‘Good,’ said Alston.

  Alston sipped his whisky and smiled. Only a few months ago, the idea of killing de Lancey would have shocked him. But now he knew that it was the right and necessary thing to do if de Lancey were not to blow the whole thing open. In moments of national crisis, like now, he had to have the moral strength to do what was necessary. Anything less was weakness and, unlike Lord Halifax, Alston was not weak. Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini had not achieved what they had by being weak. Constance had taught him that. Which was remarkable for such a young woman.

  ‘You have been an enormous help to me, Constance. But someone like you shouldn’t be involved in this kind of thing.’

  ‘I love helping you, silly!’ She smiled at him. Then the smile disappeared. ‘Besides, I told you I had once killed someone. Before Millie.’

  ‘I remember you saying you had “taken steps”.’ Alston had been curious at the time what those steps were. He was even more curious now.

  ‘It was my uncle.’

  ‘The one you went to live with?’

  ‘That’s right. After Daddy killed himself, my mother, my sister and I went down to Dulwich to stay with him and my aunt – my aunt is my mother’s sister. After the factory closed we had no money and they did. I knew there was something wrong with Uncle Cedric, but I didn’t know what. On the surface, he seemed very correct and proper, kind even, but he was cruel to my aunt and my mother. He had my aunt under his thumb and he soon had my mother in the same position.

  ‘Then one night he came into our bedroom. My younger sister Lucy was asleep. He tried to kiss me. So I whacked him. For the next three months there was war between us, he did all he could to turn my mother and my aunt against me. It was horrible, but I refused to give up.’

  Constance sighed. ‘But he knew how to really hurt me. One morning I came back to our bedroom and found him with Lucy. She was naked. She was only thirteen! When he saw me, he smiled.’

  ‘How old were you?’

  ‘I was fifteen. The next morning he fell under the eight-thirty-nine train to London Bridge. A witness said she thought he was pushed. I told the police he had wanted to kill himself. I was late to school that morning, but no one noticed.’

  ‘My God,’ said Alston.

  ‘And the thing of it is,’ said Constance, ‘life was better for me and for my sister, and for my mother and my aunt. Much better.’ She kissed his scarred cheek. He loved the way she seemed to favour that side of his face with her tenderness.

  ‘I’ve never told anyone that before. I didn’t think anyone would understand. But you understand, don’t you, Henry? Now.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Alston, stroking her hair. ‘I understand.’

  ‘It’s either de Lancey or us, Henry. You can’t become Prime Minister if you are in jail for murder, now can you? Come to bed. And tomorrow, who knows? Perhaps the war will be lost and you will have your chance again.’

  Part 4

  May 1940

  41

  Extracts from Lieutenant Dieter von Hertenberg’s Diary

  10 May

  It’s started! We crossed the River Sûre on the Luxembourg border at 0530 this morning with the tanks of 1st Panzer Division. I am in the armoured command car with General Guderian; I go everywhere he goes. The roads are narrow and winding with steep wooded valleys. The weather is gorgeous; the sky is blue and clear. Tanks stretch out for kilometres – we are sitting ducks for French aircraft, but fortunately we haven’t seen any. The Luxembourg border guards were overwhelmed by detachments of our infantry and we drove straight through.

  Our orders are to push through the Ardennes forest to Luxembourg and Belgium until we reach Sedan. Then we establish a bridgehead over the River Meuse.

  11 May

  Delayed by minefields and demolition of bridges on the Belgian border with Luxembourg. Brief fighting with French cavalry and Belgian Chasseurs Ardennais around Neufchâteau. Reached the Semois River at Bouillon. It’s not very wide, but the banks form a good defensive line for the French and Belgians. The French are digging in at the town of Bouillon.

  I think we have created the largest traffic jam in Europe; apparently the columns of vehicles stretch back all the way across Luxembourg to Germany. Still seen only a couple of French reconnaissance aircraft, which is lucky because we are trapped on these narrow forest roads.

  12 May

  Whitsun. The French have blown the bridge over the Semois, but it is fordable in places. The French have retreated from Bouillon. Our engineers constructed a new bridge and 1st Panzer crossed into the town.

  We have suffered enemy bombing for the first time. We set up Corps HQ in the Hôtel Panorama in Bouillon, which does indeed have a wonderful view of the Semois valley. Guderian was standing by a fireplace in the parlour. Hunting trophies lined the walls, including a particularly large wild boar’s head. Suddenly some British bombs landed nearby, one of which hit an ammunition supply column. There was a series of massive explosions: glass shattered, and the trophies flew off the wall. The giant boar missed Guderian by only a few centimetres. He was badly shaken.

  But I am impressed with the general. He is a hard taskmaster and drives around the forward units manically. We get very little sleep. But his doctrine of leading from the front works. We have a wireless, a map table and ciphers in the command vehicle – much better than sitting twenty kilometres to the rear with a row of telephones, which is what all the other generals do. He keeps the tanks moving, which keeps the enemy off balance.

  He has just flown off in a Storch to have discussions with Cousin Paul in the rear. Expected back later this evening.

  Later... Guderian returned and had some pretty nasty things to say about General Kleist. I decided not to remind him that he was being rude about my relative! Our orders are to cross the Meuse tomorrow afternoon. Kleist has heard from Berlin that the French 7th Army with all its armour is moving north into Flanders rather than east to meet us. This is very good news, and just what Theo predicted.

  A lot to do to get the orders out for tomorrow’s attack. And although we have crossed the Moselle on exercise, the Meuse will be much more difficult when properly defended. I think I will be seeing real action tomorrow.

  13 May

  Exhausted. I have scarcely slept at all for the last seventy-two hours. Or is it ninety-six? It’s been a long and dangerous day, but we have a toehold across the Meuse!

  The morning was spent frantically trying to produce orders for the assault. I had the idea of using the same orders in our files from the war game on the Moselle we did a couple of weeks ago. Simply added six hours to everything, so the start time of 1000 became 1600.

  The French have abandoned the larger part of Sedan which lies on the east bank of the Meuse. The river itself is wide and fast-flowing, and on the west bank are steep green hills with trees, pillboxes, stone towers and gun emplacements. It is like a mountain spitting fire! I thought there was no chance of us ever getting across.

  Then our Stukas came, wave after wave of them. They dive down out of the sky, sirens screaming, and drop bombs on the French positions. They kept it up all afternoon. The noise is indescribable, even on our side of the river. It must be hell under it, and it seems to ha
ve kept most of the French artillery and machine guns quiet.

  At 1600 our infantry paddled across the river in dinghies. They took casualties but have established a couple of bridgeheads on the far bank. Once the orders were issued, Guderian drove back and forth between 1st Panzer and 2nd Panzer. Then we boarded a dinghy to cross the river, under fire of course. When we got to the other side, the smart-arse commander of the 1st Rifle Regiment said, ‘Joyriding is forbidden on the Meuse.’ To be fair to Guderian, he laughed.

  At nightfall we returned here to Corps HQ. The engineers are building a pontoon over the river for the tanks to cross tomorrow.

  I am so tired. I must get some sleep!

  14 May

  Fierce battle around Sedan. The bridge has been built and tanks have crossed over. Intelligence suggests that French armour are massing for a counter-attack. Some of the French have turned and run, but some are still fighting, and they have superb positions on the heights looking down on the river. Now we are seeing a lot of French and British aeroplanes. It’s touch and go.

  At noon General von Rundstedt, Commander of Army Group A, arrived to take a look. Guderian took him, and me, out on to the centre of our new bridge in the middle of an air raid. The British bombers are not very accurate, but they are aiming at the bridge! Rundstedt tried to take it as calmly as Guderian, but you could see he was rattled. There were bodies in the river, but I didn’t jump in after them this time. These fellows weren’t struggling, they were face down in the water and covered with dark patches of blood.

  The noise is extraordinary: artillery gunfire, the rattle of machine guns, the thuds and splashes of bombs, the screams of the Stukas, and the constant rumble of tanks on the move. And yet the sun shines.