Mightier Than the Sword

by Jeffrey Archer

  This time it was Fisher who was first on his feet, and he delivered an equally well-prepared reponse. “Sadly, I’ve been divorced for some years, but that hasn’t stopped me hoping that one day I will find the right partner. But, whatever my marital status, let me assure you that I would never consider becoming involved in a casual sexual relationship.”

  A gasp went up in the hall, and one section of the crowd applauded enthusiastically.

  The Liberal candidate said, “I have just as much difficulty finding a girlfriend as I do finding people who will vote for me, but, like the major, I haven’t given up yet.” This was greeted with laughter and applause.

  Giles felt sad that Fletcher wasn’t able to be open about his sexuality, and looked forward to the day when he could admit that his partner was seated in the front row, and that they had been living happily together for many years.

  When Giles took his place, he stood to one side of the lectern, looked directly at the audience and smiled. “I’m no saint.”

  “True!” shouted a Conservative supporter, but he was greeted only by an embarrassed silence.

  “I admit that I’ve strayed, and, as you all know, that is why Gwyneth is not here tonight, which I deeply regret. She has been a loyal and faithful wife, who has played an active role in the constituency.” He paused for a moment before adding, “But when the time comes for you to cast your vote, I hope you will place on the scales of human frailty twenty-five years of service to the people of this great city against one foolish lapse of judgement, because I would like the honor and privilege of continuing to serve all of you for many years to come.”

  Giles suppressed a smile when the audience began to applaud, and was just about to return to his seat when someone shouted, “Don’t you think it’s time you told us more about Berlin?”

  A loud undercurrent of chattering broke out in the hall and the chairman immediately leapt up, but Giles had already returned to the lectern. He gripped the sides so no one could see how nervous he was. Two thousand people looked up expectantly as he faced his inquisitor, who was still on his feet. Giles waited for complete silence.

  “I’m only too delighted to do so, sir. I found Berlin to be a tragic city divided by a twelve-foot concrete wall crowned in barbed wire. It wasn’t built to keep the West Germans out, but to keep the East Germans in, creating the largest prison on earth. Hardly a compelling argument for Communism. But I pray that I will live to see it razed to the ground. I hope that is something we can both agree on, sir.”

  The man sank back into his place as Giles returned to his seat with the sound of thunderous applause ringing in his ears.

  The final question was about the power of the unions, and both Giles’s and Fisher’s responses were unconvincing; Giles, because he had lost his concentration, while Fisher hadn’t recovered from his demon fast bowler being knocked out of the ground.

  Giles had recovered by the time it came to deliver his summing up, and it took him some time to leave the hall, as he had to shake so many outstretched hands. But it was Griff who best summed up the evening.

  “We’re back in the race.”

  22

  THE Bristol Evening News made a valiant attempt to present a balanced account of the debate that had taken place at the Hippodrome theatre the previous evening, but you didn’t have to read between the lines to be in any doubt who it felt was the winner. Although it had some reservations, the paper recommended that their readers should send Sir Giles Barrington back to the House of Commons.

  “We haven’t won yet,” said Griff, dropping the paper in the nearest wastepaper basket. “So let’s get back to work. There’s still six days, nine hours, and fourteen minutes to go before the polls close next Thursday.”

  Everyone set about their allotted task, whether it was checking canvass returns, preparing voting sheets for polling day, double-checking who needed a lift to the polling station, answering queries from the public, distributing last-minute leaflets, or making sure the candidate was fed and watered.

  “Preferably on the move,” said Griff, who returned to his office and continued to work on the eve-of-poll message that would be dropped through the letterbox of every registered Labour supporter the night before the election.

  * * *

  At 5:45 a.m. on polling day Giles was once again standing outside Temple Meads station reminding everyone he shook hands with to “Vote for Barrington—today!”

  Griff had designed a schedule that accounted for every minute of election day until the polls closed at 10:00 p.m. He had allocated Giles ten minutes for a pork pie, a cheese sandwich, and half a pint of cider in the most popular pub in the constituency.

  At 6:30 p.m., he looked up to the heavens and cursed when it began to rain. Didn’t the gods know that between eight and ten in the morning, and five and seven in the evening, were Labour’s peak voting times? The Tories always got their vote out between ten and five. From seven o’clock in the evening until ten, when the polls closed, was anybody’s guess. The gods must have heard his plea, because the shower only lasted for about twenty minutes.

  Giles ended the sixteen-hour day standing outside the gates of the dockyard, making sure that those clocking on for the night shift had already voted. If they hadn’t, they were immediately dispatched to the polling station on the other side of the road.

  “But I’ll be late clocking on.”

  “I know the chairman,” said Giles. To those who were coming off duty before going to the pub, Giles kept repeating, “Make sure you vote before you order your first pint.”

  Griff and his team constantly checked their canvass returns so they could “knock up” those who still hadn’t cast their vote and remind them that the polling stations didn’t close until ten.

  At one minute past ten, Giles shook the last hand and, desperate for a drink, walked down the road to join the dock workers in the Lord Nelson.

  “Make mine a pint,” he said, leaning on the bar.

  “Sorry, Sir Giles. It’s gone ten, and I know you wouldn’t want me to lose my license.”

  Two men sitting at the bar grabbed an empty glass and filled it from their own two pints.

  “Thank you,” said Giles, raising his glass.

  “We’re both feeling a little guilty,” one of them admitted. “We ran in during the shower, so we haven’t voted.”

  Giles would happily have poured the beer over their heads. Looking around the pub, he wondered how many more votes he’d lost when it was raining.

  Harry walked into the Lord Nelson a few minutes later. “Sorry to drag you away,” he said, “but Griff has ordered me to take you home.”

  “Not a man to be disobeyed,” said Giles, downing his pint.

  “So what happens next?” asked Harry as they set off in his car for Barrington Hall.

  “Nothing new. The local constabulary will be collecting the ballot boxes from all over the constituency before taking them to the Guildhall. The seals will be broken in the presence of Mr. Hardy, the town clerk, and once the ballot papers have been checked, the counting begins. So there’s no point in turning up at City Hall yet, as we can’t expect a result much before three a.m. Griff’s picking me up around midnight.”

  * * *

  Giles was dozing in his bath when the front-door bell rang. He climbed slowly out, pulled on a dressing gown, and pushed open the bathroom window to see Griff standing on the doorstep below.

  “Sorry, Griff, I must have fallen asleep in the bath. Let yourself in and fix yourself a drink. I’ll be down as quickly as I can.”

  Giles put on the same suit and tie he wore for every count, although he had to admit he could no longer do up the jacket’s middle button. He was on his way downstairs fifteen minutes later.

  “Don’t ask me, because I don’t know,” said Griff, as he drove out of the front gates. “All I can tell you is that if the exit polls are to be believed, the Tories have won by about forty seats.”

  “Then it’s back to opposition,
” said Giles.

  “That’s assuming you win, and our polling returns are showing it’s too close to call,” said Griff. “It’s 1951 all over again.” Griff didn’t say another word until they pulled into the car park outside City Hall, when three weeks of pent-up frustration and not a great deal of sleep suddenly came bursting out.

  “It’s not the thought of losing that I can’t stomach,” said Griff. “It’s the thought of Major fucking Fisher winning.”

  Giles sometimes forgot how passionately Griff felt about the cause, and how lucky he was to have him as his agent.

  “Right,” said Griff, “now I’ve got that off my chest, let’s report for duty.” He got out of the car, straightened his tie and headed toward City Hall. As they walked up the steps together, Griff turned to Giles and said, “Try and look as if you expect to win.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “Then you’ll have to deliver a speech you’ve never made before, which will be a new experience for you.” Giles laughed as they entered the packed, noisy room where the count was taking place.

  A dozen long trestle tables filled the room, with council officials and selected party representatives seated on both sides, furiously counting or observing. Every time a new black ballot box was emptied onto the tables, a forest of hands stretched out and quickly sorted the names of the candidates into three separate piles, before the counting could begin. Little stacks of ten soon became stacks of a hundred, at which point a red, blue, or yellow band was placed around them and they were lined up like infantrymen at the end of the table.

  Griff watched the process warily. A simple mistake and a hundred votes could be placed in the wrong pile.

  “What do you want us to do?” asked Seb as he and Miss Parish came over to join them.

  “Take a table each and report back to me if you spot anything you’re not happy about.”

  “And what about you?” asked Giles.

  “I’ll do what I always do,” said Griff, “scrutinize the votes from the Woodbine Estate and Arcadia Avenue. Once I’ve checked their returns, I’ll be able to tell you who’s going to win.”

  Griff’s team took a table each and, although the process was slow, it was running smoothly. Once Giles had made a complete circuit of the room, deftly avoiding Fisher, he rejoined Griff.

  “You’re two hundred votes down in Arcadia Avenue, and about two hundred up on the Woodbine Estate, so it’s anybody’s guess.”

  After Giles had done another circuit of the room, only one thing was certain: Simon Fletcher was going to come third.

  A few minutes later, Mr. Hardy tapped the microphone in the center of the stage. The room fell silent and everyone turned to face the town clerk.

  “Would the candidates please join me to check the spoilt ballot papers.” A little ceremony Griff always enjoyed.

  After the three candidates and their agents had studied the forty-two spoilt papers, they all agreed that twenty-two of them were valid: 10 for Giles, 9 for Fisher, and 3 for Fletcher.

  “Let’s hope that’s an omen,” said Griff, “because as Churchill famously said, one is enough.”

  “Any surprises?” asked Seb when they returned to the floor.

  “No,” said Griff, “but I did enjoy one the town clerk rejected, Will your girlfriend in East Berlin be getting a postal vote?” Giles managed a smile. “Back to work. We can’t afford one mistake, and never forget 1951 when Seb saved the day.”

  Hands began shooting up all around the room to show that the counting had finished on that particular table. An official then double-checked the figures before taking them up to the town clerk, who in turn entered them into an adding machine. Giles could still remember the days when the late Mr. Wainwright entered each figure on a ledger, and then three of his deputies checked and double-checked every entry, before he was willing to declare the result.

  At 2:49 a.m., the town clerk walked back to the microphone and tapped it once again. The momentary silence was broken only by a pencil falling off a table and rolling across the floor. Mr. Hardy waited until it had been picked up.

  “I, Leonard Derek Hardy, being the returning officer for the constituency of Bristol Docklands, declare the total number of votes cast for each candidate to be as follows:

  Sir Giles Barrington

  18,971

  Mr. Simon Fletcher

  3,586

  Major Alexander Fisher

  18____”

  As soon as Giles heard the word eighteen and not nineteen, he felt confident he’d won.

  “—994.”

  The Tory camp immediately erupted. Griff, trying to make himself heard above the noise, asked Mr. Hardy for a recount, which was immediately granted. The whole process began again, with every table checking and rechecking first the tens, then the hundreds, and finally the thousands, before once again reporting back to the town clerk.

  At 3:27 a.m., he called for silence again. “I, Leonard Derek Hardy, being the returning officer…” Heads were bowed, eyes were closed, while some of those present turned away, unable even to face the stage as they crossed their fingers and waited for the numbers to be read out. “… for each candidate to be as follows:

  Sir Giles Barrington

  18,972

  Mr. Simon Fletcher

  3,586

  Major Alexander Fisher

  18,993.”

  Giles knew that after such a close result he could insist on a second recount, but he did not. Instead, he reluctantly nodded his acceptance of the result to the town clerk.

  “I therefore declare Major Alexander Fisher to be the duly elected Member of Parliament for the constituency of Bristol Docklands.”

  An eruption of shouting and cheering broke out in one half of the room as the new member was raised onto the shoulders of his party workers and paraded around the hall. Giles walked across and shook Fisher’s hand for the first time during the campaign.

  After the speeches were over, Fisher triumphant in victory, Giles gracious in defeat, Simon Fletcher pointing out that he’d recorded his highest ever vote, the newly elected member and his supporters went on celebrating throughout the night, while the vanquished drifted away in twos and threes, with Griff and Giles among the last to leave.

  “We’d have done it if the national swing hadn’t been against us,” said Griff, as he drove the former member home.

  “Just twenty-one votes,” said Giles.

  “Eleven,” said Griff.

  “Eleven?” repeated Giles.

  “If eleven voters had changed their minds.”

  “And if it hadn’t rained for twenty minutes at six thirty.”

  “It’s been a year of ifs.”

  23

  GILES FINALLY climbed into bed just before 5:00 a.m. He switched off the bedside light, put his head on the pillow, and closed his eyes, just as the alarm went off. He groaned and switched the light back on. No longer any need to be standing outside Temple Meads station at 6:00 a.m. to greet the early morning commuters.

  My name is Giles Barrington, and I’m your Labour candidate for yesterday’s election … He switched off the alarm and fell into a deep sleep, not waking again until eleven that morning.

  After a late breakfast, or was it brunch, he had a shower, got dressed, packed a small suitcase, and drove out of the gates of Barrington Hall just after midday. He was in no hurry, as his plane wouldn’t be taking off from Heathrow until 4:15 p.m.

  If, another if, Giles had stayed at home for a few more minutes, he could have taken a call from Harold Wilson, who was compiling his resignation honors list. The new leader of the opposition was going to offer Giles the chance to go to the House of Lords and sit on the opposition front bench as spokesman on foreign affairs.

  Mr. Wilson tried again that evening, but by then Giles had landed in Berlin.

  * * *

  Only a few months before, the Rt. Hon. Sir Giles Barrington MP had been driven out onto the runway at Heathrow, and the plane took off only after h
e’d fastened his seat belt in first class.

  Now, squeezed between a woman who never stopped chatting to her friend on the other side of the aisle, and a man who clearly enjoyed making it difficult for him to turn the pages of the Times, Giles reflected on what he hadn’t missed. The two-and-a-half-hour flight seemed interminable, and when they landed he had to dash through the rain to get to the terminal.

  Although he was among the first off the plane, he was almost the last to leave baggage reclaim. He had forgotten just how long it could take before your luggage appeared on the carousel. By the time he was reunited with his bag and had been released from customs and finally made it to the front of the taxi queue, he was already exhausted.

  “Checkpoint Charlie” was all he said as he climbed into the back of the cab.

  The driver gave him a second look, decided he was sane, but dropped him off some hundred yards from the border post. It was still raining.

  As Giles ran toward the customs building, carrying his bag in one hand and his copy of the Times held over his head in the other, he couldn’t help recalling his last visit to Berlin.

  When he stepped inside, he joined a short queue, but it still took a long time before he reached the front.

  “Good evening, sir,” said a fellow countryman, as Giles handed over his passport and visa.

  “Good evening,” said Giles.

  “May I ask why you are visiting the Eastern sector, Sir Giles?” the guard inquired politely, while inspecting his documents.

  “I’m seeing a friend.”

  “And how long do you plan to stay in the Eastern sector?”

  “Seven days.”

  “The maximum period your temporary visa allows,” the officer reminded him.

  Giles nodded, hoping that in seven days’ time all his questions would have been answered, and he would at last know if Karin felt the same way as he did. The officer smiled, stamped his passport, and said “Good luck” as if he meant it.

  At least the rain had stopped by the time Giles stepped back out of the building. He set out on the long walk across no-man’s-land between the two border posts, not in the British Embassy’s Rolls-Royce accompanied by the ambassador but as a private citizen representing no one other than himself.