Chancellor Kress barked, ‘You are lying to me, in your teeth. I find it impossible to believe anything that you say. You are abandoning us to the most oppressive regime in the history of the Western world. You are a hypocrite and a deceiver!’
‘You listen to me, Herr Chancellor,’ The president shouted back. ‘Times have changed, and the world has changed, and any politician with the minutest sense of responsibility towards the human race has got to change along with them. How much longer do you people in West Germany want to go on living under the shadow of nuclear annihilation? Tell me that! How much longer are ordinary men and women going to be frightened to have children in case they get incinerated before they grow up?’
Chancellor Kress retorted, ‘You think we are frightened of nuclear bombs? That is how much you misjudge us! We are far more frightened of the oppression of the Soviet Union! At least, with the bomb, you are killed and that is the end of your suffering! Have you ever been to Estonia? Have you seen what the Soviets have done there? The old national flag is forbidden, the language is forbidden, the folk-songs and the culture are forbidden! Everywhere you go, you are greeted by the huge number 40, which reminds you that this country has been oppressed by the Soviets for forty years, and they intend to continue for another forty, and yet another forty.’
‘Herr Chancellor, please,’ said the President, wearily.
‘No, Mr President. I now see you Americans for what you are. You have become deluded by your own movies. You believe that it is enough to be sentimental, without the real substance of loyalty or love. You believe that it is right to be ambitious, without counting the cost of your ambition to other people. You believe in freedom without responsibility, and success without guilt. You cannot see the squalor that surrounds you in your own country; how can I expect you to care about us?’
‘Now, listen—’ the President tried to interrupt.
‘No, Mr President, no. I do not wish to listen to any more of your cotton-candy cant. History will assess you best, for what you are, and what you have done. But, I have to say this. I am a pragmatic man. I know that the Bundeswehr cannot hold back the Soviet Army on its own. They want to, believe me. My generals are all ready to fight. But the result of unilateral retaliation would be the pointless massacre of many thousands of excellent young Germans, and many civilians, besides the risk of inviting nuclear attack from the Russians. You say that I am concerned only with my own small affairs, but I am not. For it would take only one nuclear bomb to be dropped, for others to follow. So perhaps to that extent you are right; and it is better for the German people to be oppressed than the whole world to be destroyed. But, I will ask you one question, and if you answer this question with “no”, I shall order the Bundeswehr to put down their weapons, abandon their tanks, and remove their uniforms, and go home to dress themselves in civilian clothes. I shall order the Bundeswehr to melt away, as if it had never existed. If you answer “yes”, however, then I will order them to stand firm, and to fight bravely and hard, alongside the men they always used to believe were their allies.’
The President dabbed his mouth one-handed with his napkin. He said nothing; not because he didn’t have anything to say; but because this conversation hurt him and upset him more than he could have explained to anybody, even the First Lady. He knew what he was doing to Chancellor Kress, he knew what he was doing to the Germans. But he was the President of the United States of America; and, as such, he had a prime duty to protect the interests of the United States. GRINGO had been mooted over two years ago, and ever since then he had agonized over it, and suffered sleepless nights for the very first time in his life. Tonight, he was having to face up at last to the consequences of his decision, and so were the West Germans.
Chancellor Kress said, ‘The question is, will you abrogate your agreement with Moscow, and protect us from the Soviet Army? Or not?’
The President paused thoughtfully. Then he said, ‘Otto – come on, I can still call you Otto, can’t I? – let me think favourably about this. Give me a break, hm? An hour, that’s all I ask. Maybe I can work something out.’
On the other side of the office, Morton pinched his thumb and his forefinger in a circle of approval. ‘Fifty-two minutes,’ he whispered. ‘Then we’re clear.’
Chancellor Kress said, ‘Very well, Mr President. One hour, and one hour only. Then I disband the Bundeswehr, and announce to the rest of the world what has happened.’
The President said, ‘I hope you’re being equally strict with Britain.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Chancellor Kress. ‘The Prime Minister is next on my list of calls.’
‘Otto,’ said the President. ‘I hope you understand what happened here, and why it had to happen.’
‘Yes,’ said Chancellor Kress. His voice was as bitter as burned Arabica coffee. ‘I believe that I do.’
*
At No. 10 Downing Street, the lights had been burning all night. It was nearly two o’clock in the morning, which meant that Operation Byliny was due to commence in fewer than twelve minutes. The Defence minister was in constant touch with the Department of Defence; and the Department of Defence in turn was in close touch with the British forces in Germany; and also with the Defence Council in Moscow, who had appointed an incongruously cheerful English-speaking general called Nikolai Glinka to liaise with the British.
It was a strange and nervous night. The Prime Minister sat at her desk, her supper-tray untouched; the Defence Secretary glanced several times at her chicken-breast sandwiches and her congealing Scotch broth, and wished that he had the nerve to ask her if he could have them. General Fawkes had made occasional appearances, but each time he had seemed to be increasingly befuddled by lack of sleep; and eventually Brigadier Mount-Avery had taken his place, all beams and smoothly-shaven chin, pleading that General Fawkes had been ‘summoned elsewhere’; meaning, of course, bed, in Shepperton.
British intelligence had reported just before midnight that Bonn had somehow received advance warning of Operation Byliny. This was hardly any surprise, since modern communications were so sophisticated, and Byliny was such a massive military manoeuvre. If there was anything unexpected about it at all, it was that it had taken the Germans so long to understand that they were being sacrificed to the greater cause of global peace. But Whitehall’s assessment seemed to be that the leak to Bonn had come too late for the Bundeswehr to be able to take any effective retaliatory action. Faced with 19 divisions of fast-moving Russian armour and artillery, it was unlikely that Bonn would consider it prudent to put up a fight.
The Prime Minister was agitated. She had always known that this would be the worst moment, both politically and strategically; not to mention emotionally. This was the moment when the Federal German Republic would realize how completely it had been betrayed. But what choice had there been? Britain had been forced to decide between allegiance to Europe and allegiance to the United States; and in the end there had been no serious contest. The United States was richer; the United States was far more powerful; the United States spoke English. When Britain had first entered the Common Market, they had talked about “going into Europe”, as if they were somehow not part of Europe already.
There would be moments in the coming week that would be just as traumatic: when the Dutch and the Belgians and the French quickly began to realize that they had been sacrificed too. By next weekend, the coastline across the English Channel would be Soviet territory, the Autonomous Oblast of Western Europe, and they would be flying the Red Flag at Boulogne instead of the Tricouleur.
The Prime Minister thought: if only it weren’t too late. If only there had been some other way. But the enormous build-, up of nuclear weaponry in Europe and the huge enlargement of the Soviet Navy had both made it impossible for the political map of Europe to remain as it was. Something had to give; something had to be surrendered; otherwise Europe would almost inevitably be devastated. Only the Prime Minister and her closest advisers knew how close it had come to that, and ho
w frequently. There had almost been out-and-out war with the Soviet Union when cruise missiles were first sited on British soil; and there had been scores of hair-raising incidents when Soviet reconnaissance aircraft had overflown NATO territory.
Ultimately, of course, it had been all those weeks of relentless pressure from the United States which had obliged the Prime Minister to agree to the talks in Copenhagen. With his mid-term elections due, the President had badly needed to be able to boast to a disillusioned electorate that he had achieved total security in the Western hemisphere, and the end of the Communist regime in Cuba. He had also insisted on no further Communist expansion in Asia, and no more guerrilla activity in the Third World. In return, he was prepared to give up the military protection of Western Europe, which also happened to be the single most expensive item in his defence budget.
The President had reminded the Prime Minister in a fierce conversation (later described by Downing Street as a “frank discussion”) that Britain still owed the United States $12,083,291,413 from World War One; and that was one of her smaller liabilities.
It had been made quite clear to the Prime Minister that if she was not positively in favour of the Copenhagen Agreement, then she would be deemed to be against it, with all the unpleasant political consequences that this would bring down on her.
Tonight, she remarked to her ministers, ‘I must say that I would feel a great deal easier about the Russians advancing into Europe if we didn’t have all of these strikes. How seriously do you think they might have affected our ability to defend ourselves?’
The Defence Secretary swept back his hair. ‘Hard to be exact. Prime Minister. I mean, if Britain actually were to be attacked, it’s quite conceivable that the unions would do their patriotic duty and call all the strikes off at once. But things have changed since World War Two. There are some very strong links between the unions and the Soviet Communist party. In the last miners’ strike, the Russians collected 50,000 roubles to support them; and they won’t forget that in a hurry. Our nuclear strike capability won’t be seriously affected; Trident will remain just as effective; but as far as beating off any kind of conventional attack is concerned, well… we would be very much weaker.’
The Home Secretary noisily cleared his throat, and threw out one hand as if it were a cricket-glove that he was trying to toss back into his kitbag. ‘It all seems fairly quiet tonight. Prime Minister, on the industrial front. No new walk-outs; pickets docile enough. And even Albert Grange is keeping his mouth shut. I wouldn’t say the chances are all that hopeful. But, well, we may be seeing the reflection of the light at the end of the tunnel, if not the actual light.’
The Prime Minister didn’t seem to be at all amused, or reassured. ‘What if the Kremlin don’t keep their word? What if they continue to threaten us, even after they’ve taken over Europe?’
‘That rather depends on the continued support of the United States,’ said the Foreign Secretary, breathing on his spectacles and polishing them briskly with his handkerchief. He looked across at the Prime Minister with watery eyes. ‘Come on. Prime Minister, we’ve discussed this a thousand times. We were caught between Scylla and Charybdis; this is the only way through.’
‘I hate to think what future history books will make of this,’ said the Prime Minister, bitterly.
‘I should think that they’ll be rather complimentary about it, since they’ll all be Russian,’ said the Foreign Secretary.
The Prime Minister gave him a look which made him wish that he had kept his cynical little joke to himself. ‘We do have the Copenhagen Agreement,’ he reminded her.
‘An agreement to which Britain was only a secondary party.’
‘But, an agreement nonetheless.’
‘The Potsdam agreement was an agreement. In the Potsdam agreement, the Soviet Union promised to honour the nationality of Latvia and Estonia and Lithuania.’
‘With respect. Prime Minister, that’s history.’
The Prime Minister turned away sharply. ‘Not to the people who live there.’
The Home Secretary sighed. He wished he were at home in Buckinghamshire, asleep. He missed his dogs, and his wife. He wouldn’t even get his usual Sunday breakfast, with the newspapers, and home-cured bacon.
‘I really think that we have to make the best of a rotten situation,’ he said. ‘Perhaps the greatest problem has always been that Britain ought to have been located off the American coast, rather than the European.’
‘I know we’re talking about changing the map,’ replied the Defence Secretary, ‘but that’s rather an extreme sort of alteration, don’t you think?’
The Prime Minister said, ‘I can’t believe that it’s come to this.’ She could sense for herself the authority she had lost over her Cabinet since she had been forced to agree to Operation Byliny. They behaved like mischievous public-schoolboys these days, tossing metaphorical paper-darts around the common-room, and chalking up insults on the blackboard. Her own political spirit, although she didn’t yet dare to admit it, had been broken for ever. All she could see ahead of her now was a caretaker’s job, making sure that Britain remained reasonably free and reasonably profitable. After all, the United Kingdom would now be the only buffer, politically, economically and geographically, between the Soviet Union and the United States. All of her time would be spent resisting the bullying and the cajoling of both.
It was dangerous, unpleasant, and hideously frightening; but perhaps she would be able to save the lives of the 56 million people for whom she was personally responsible.
The intercom buzzed. ‘Brigadier Mount-Avery,’ said the Prime Minister’s secretary, tersely.
Brigadier Mount-Avery came in with his swagger-stick under his arm, his chestnut moustache gleaming, dressed as immaculately as if he were on his way to salute a visiting head-of-state.
‘Prime Minister,’ he said, inclining his head; his words clipping out like metal staples. ‘We’ve just had the code-message from Stuttgart that everything’s ready to go. Apparently the Bundeswehr have been kicking up all kinds of fusses, talking about suicide missions and so forth, but the last I heard, they’d been ordered to stand down.’
‘Thank you, brigadier,’ said the Prime Minister. ‘I’ve heard the same thing from Bonn.’
‘They don’t seem to know yet how close we are to zero hour,’ the brigadier remarked.
‘No,’ said the Prime Minister soberly. Chancellor Kress had called her twice tonight already, appealing for information and for military support against the Soviet Union. Each time, she had been obliged to stall him, and to lie. She hoped there would be no more ignominious moments in her career than this. She was glad that her husband was so understanding. He was as frightened of the future as she was.
The Defence Secretary glanced across at the carriage clock on the Prime Minister’s desk, which was chiming two. ‘I’d better be getting back,’ he said, uncrossing his legs. ‘In about ten minutes, all bloody hell is going to be let loose.’
The Prime Minister said, ‘Wait,’ and pressed the button on her intercom to call her resident house manager. After a moment or two, he appeared at the door with a silver tray, on which there was arranged a ship’s decanter of whiskey and a dozen crystal glasses. Number Ten’s old skewbald cat Wilberforce rubbed around his ankles.
‘A drink, please, Thomas,’ the Prime Minister asked the house manager. With infinitesimally trembling hands, he poured one out for each of the ministers present.
When he had done so, the Prime Minister raised her glass and proposed a toast. ‘Her Majesty,’ she said, in a throaty voice, ‘may God protect her, and all of us.’
‘Her Majesty,’ growled the ministers, and drank.
There were eight minutes and fifteen seconds left to go before Byliny.
*
During the night, the Federal German government made urgent representations to the UN Secretary-General, Murtala Obasiki: and Chancellor Kress spoke in turn to the Prime Ministers of Denmark, Sweden, France, an
d Belgium. Each head of government was as powerless and as confused as he was. The key to what was happening was in the secret Copenhagen agreement made between the United States and the Soviet Union, with the United Kingdom as a co-signatory, and none of them was prepared to discuss the matter ‘except if it is tabled at the next regular meeting of the United Nations Security Council.’
The British and American news media carried scarcely any mention of the European crisis, except for a puzzled leader in the Sunday Times entitled ‘What Crisis?’ By 3 a.m. European time, almost all of the British Sunday newspapers had already finished printing, and the Prime Minister’s Press Secretary was deftly fending off inquiries from BBC and Independent Television news with expressions of urbane surprise that the West Germans should be so concerned about the Soviet manoeuvres, which, after all, were ‘nothing out of the ordinary’.
He put down the telephone on the last call only 35 seconds before General Abramov gave the order for the East German border posts to be opened, and the first Soviet tanks to advance into Western Germany. His order was simple: Advance – and pobyeda! Victory!
*
It was raining; scatterings of rain, like raisins. David Daniels was asleep in a side-street in Oakville, Ontario, a few miles short of Toronto. He hadn’t wanted to sleep: he had wanted to press on, and put as much distance between himself and the United States as he possibly could. But it was a good two-and-a-half hour trip from Niagara to Toronto, and despite his determination to drive through the night, the shock and the exhaustion of the past day began to tell on him; and at last he turned off highway 5 into the lakeside suburb of Oakville, population 4,327, climate wet, and turned into a neat deadend street, and closed his eyes.
He dreamed of blood. He woke up two or three times, trembling, and muttering to himself. There was blood everywhere, all over his face, all over his clothes, congealing between his fingers. He woke up and the blood was gone; but he was still sitting cramped in his rented car, and it was still night-time, and raining, and he was still a fugitive from his own guilt and from the US government’s hounds of hell.
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