Читать книгу Never Surrender - Michael Dobbs - Страница 7

Whit Sunday. The first Sunday of the real war.

The Reverend Henry Chichester climbed into the pulpit of his ancient parish church of St Ignatius-without-the-Walls, which stood above the port of Dover, and confronted pews that were crowded with parishioners. There was no denying it: war had been good for business. The flock grew larger with every passing month. What did it matter that these people had grabbed their gas masks and ration books before they’d given a thought to embracing religion, so long as they had ended up here?

I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance …

Time, he thought, was man’s greatest enemy. Time passes, and time destroys. There was a time when he had been a young man brimming with self-belief and optimism, before the trenches of Flanders. There was, too, a later time when he had gathered the pieces of that lost happiness through his love for Jennie, yet God seemed unshakable in His plan that Henry Chichester’s days were not to be spent in a state of contentment. Jennie had died giving birth, and had taken with her the last flakes of colour in his life. He had found many other things to fill the void – duty, obligation, ritual, the son – yet still it was a void. And it felt timeless, without end, a life surrounded by so many people, yet spent so much alone.

Behind his back they called him Bishop Brimstone in recognition of the strength of his faith. Henry Chichester was a good man, a strong and awe-inspiring preacher for these hard times, which is why they crowded into his pews, placed money upon the plate, filled the churchyard with flowers and left his surplice whiter than any summer cloud. All for faith. Yet none of the eager faces now raised in front of him could comprehend how, alongside his faith, sat failure. His life had been a litany of failure. He had failed in the trenches, simply by surviving. He had failed Jennie, too, by letting her die, and then failed as a father by letting Don go. He had even failed his God. The Reverend Chichester was not a wicked man but he knew he was a dishonest man, for while he preached duty as being the way to salvation he was aware that the only thing duty had delivered unto him these past years was unhappiness and a feeling that his soul had been placed on a bed of ice, where it had somehow become frozen, unable to move.

‘Today – Whit Sunday – we celebrate a time of accomplishment,’ he began from the pulpit. ‘When men shall go forth and do great deeds.’

It wasn’t the standard Whit Sunday sermon, but present circumstances called for something a little different. Many years ago his college principal had told him that while the Word may be eternal, a congregation’s attention span never was, so Henry Chichester had developed a reputation for his vivid sermons. But how could he inspire others when his words had long ago ceased to inspire him? He raised his eyes heavenward, but all he saw was a large patch of damp above his head that was growing steadily worse in the salt-wind storms. The roof was long overdue for repair, but what was the point when the entire building might be blown away by a single bomb? Dear God, what was the point?

‘The Whit Sunday story began a little while after Our Lord’s ascension into heaven, when the Apostles had come together to celebrate the day of Pentecost. They were alone, uncertain, worried about what the future held in store for them. And as they assembled in their small room, from the sky came a noise like that of a whirlwind and they were surrounded on all sides by leaping tongues of fire. Imagine that. Imagine how those men must have felt. In just a few weeks their Lord had been crucified, then resurrected, after which he had disappeared. And now this. Fire and chaos on all sides. Those poor Apostles must have been terrified.’ He cast his arms wide to gather in all the concerns his congregation were wearing so openly. ‘O Lord, how many of our young men in France must share that fear today.’

They wouldn’t fall asleep today. Nowhere in the country was closer to the war than this place and not a family in the town could escape it. The town was the port, and the port was the highway to a battlefield that was being fought over for the third time in seventy years. Like it or not, it was Dover’s war. All the newspapers carried large maps of Flanders, and the Reverend Chichester had cut out the map from The Times and pinned it on the notice-board in the porch alongside the brass-cleaning roster. Something to help focus their prayers.

‘Before his ascension Jesus had told the Apostles, “I leave behind with you – peace. I give you my own peace, but my gift is nothing like the peace of this world.”’ The vicar stared over his reading glasses and repeated the words for emphasis. ‘Nothing like the peace of this world. Our Lord knew that peace didn’t come naturally to this world; his message was that it would have to be laboured for – yes, even fought for. He was telling us that the crusade for Christ might involve much hardship.’

Eyes gazed up at him, the majority female, anxious, all desperate for reassurance.

‘And he told us this. In his own words, Jesus said: “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” That’s what he told the Apostles. And that is what he is telling us today.’

Mrs Parnell had seen him post up the map as she arrived for flower duty. There seemed to be more flowers this year than ever. Her eyes had brimmed as she saw what he was doing. ‘My youngest, Harry,’ she said, fighting her tears. ‘Just got his call-up papers this morning.’ She had made no complaint, simply grabbed her flowers and began cutting and arranging them with even more care than usual. It was only later he had found her sobbing in a rear pew. ‘I know, I know’ – she waved away his awkward attempt to comfort her – ‘he’s got to do his bit. But as a mother it’s so … well, you understand, of course. With your Donald.’

Reverend Chichester had smiled grimly and nodded. When his son had left, his parishioners assumed that he had gone off to fight like all the rest. It was an impression his father had done nothing to dispel. It wasn’t a lie, not at first, but it had taken root and grown to the point where his silence screamed of falsehood. But what was he to do? Admit the truth and lose the respect of all the Mrs Parnells in his congregation, just at the time they needed him most?

Or lose his self-respect, by admitting that every time he looked at his son he was reminded of Jennie and everything he had lost, and acknowledging that, in spite of a lifetime of faith and duty, he still couldn’t cope? He’d spent three years in a tunic constantly spattered with blood and he’d survived, yet inside he felt … a coward. Which is why the word had sprung so easily to his lips and been hurled at his only son.

‘Our young men are like the Apostles,’ he told them. ‘Sent out to follow in the footsteps of Our Lord and to cleanse the world from sin. May the Holy Spirit be with them, too.’

A chorus of ‘amens’ rippled through the congregation. The sun shone through the south windows into the nave, filling the church with warmth and comfort. He hoped it was an omen.

‘And let us take the words of Our Lord as our message today, when he said: “I am going away and I am coming back to you.” Coming back to you. Jesus passed through many trials and tribulations, but he came back to us – as we pray with all our hearts that our loved ones shall. May the Holy Spirit be with them, to bring them courage in all they do and victory in their task. May the Lord comfort them, keep them in His care and deliver them from evil, for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory …’

As he offered the sign of the cross and bade his flock to stand for the next hymn, his mind went back to the map on the board. He’d noticed there were no battle fronts or lines of trenches marked on it, not like last time, just the outline of a chunk of northern France and Belgium. But that was understandable, he decided. The Reverend Chichester, like so many others, concluded that the BEF was probably advancing too fast for the cartographers to keep up.

The morning had burst forth most gloriously, filled with birdsong and with the aroma of fresh spring grass still carried on the breeze. The clouds stood high and like gauze – an excellent day for cricket, Don thought, or some other game the Germans were no good at.

The old brewery in which the 6th had landed turned out to be rancid, full of pigeons and other pestilence. The task of transforming it into a Casualty Clearing Station was Herculean, and to be finished by the end of the day, they were instructed. They set about their labours with hoses and mops, encouraged by both the barks of their NCOs and the strengthening sun, while around them the local inhabitants carried on with their lives as they had always done: the milk was delivered, post collected, the children sent off to school as if war were no more than a distant rumour. And so it seemed. As the day drew on the men in Don’s unit began to relax; there had still been no sign of the enemy. Perhaps Hitler had thought better of the whole idea.

The news was brought to them while they paused for their first brew of the afternoon.

‘Right, then,’ the sergeant announced. ‘Pack it all up again. We’re moving.’

‘Where?’

‘Back.’

‘But, Sarge, I don’t understand, we only just got here …’

‘If you had been meant to understand, matey, God would have made you a general instead of a bleedin’ nursing orderly. So let’s just agree in this instance that the Almighty knows a half-sight more than you and jump to it. We move out. In an hour.’

‘We haven’t had a single casualty,’ Don complained, bemused.

‘And you’ll be the first, Private, if you don’t get off your backside …’

A wasted day. Grand Old Duke of York stuff. Yet Don found consolation. The fresh orders suggested there was an alternative plan. They were moving back towards the defensive positions they’d spent so long constructing. That had to make sense, so Don told the others. Only problem was, it seemed to involve so many filing cabinets once again.

The two men met in the middle of the huge walled garden. One bowed, they shook hands.

‘I must confess that I have been lying in wait for you, Edward.’

‘Then it is my turn to confess, sir, and tell you that I fear I’ve been avoiding you.’

They walked on, casting long evening shadows on the lawn, taking in the false sweetness of that spring. They were the two most respected men in the country, yet both victims of their birth. One was King, the other the most influential of aristocrats, and between them they represented all the powers and privileges that had kept the kingdom undiminished for a thousand years. Now it might not see out the summer.

‘Why have you been avoiding me, Edward?’

‘Because I fear I have let you down.’

‘Perhaps you have let yourself down.’

‘I fear that, too.’

King George VI walked on in silence with Edward, the Third Viscount Halifax, at his side. The two men were far more than monarch and Foreign Minister. There was an intimacy between them, a deep friendship that extended far beyond their formal roles. They and their families dined together, went to the theatre together, sometimes prayed together, down on their knees, side by side, and Halifax had been given a key to the gardens of Buckingham Palace for his own private recreation. Two days earlier he’d also been given the opportunity of becoming Prime Minister, and only because of his own overwhelming reluctance had the office been handed to Winston Churchill. Now, as they walked, Halifax’s tall, angular frame was bent low, like a penitent. A flight of ducks flew noisily above their heads, wheeling sharply in formation before crashing into the lake, where they began a noisy confrontation with the birds they had disturbed.

‘The ducks rather remind me,’ Halifax began tentatively, anxious to avoid the King’s questions, ‘of those poor Dutch ministers.’

‘The Dutch? Tell me, I’ve heard nothing,’ the King insisted anxiously. He was always concerned about keeping up with information; he found his job wretched enough without having to do it in the dark.

‘They were flying from Holland yesterday when they were intercepted by German fighters. They made it through, but badly damaged. Forced to ditch in the sea off Brighton. And that’s where the most dangerous part of their enterprise began. They managed to swim and stumble ashore and had just fallen exhausted upon the sand, when they were surrounded by a suspicious mob and arrested by the constabulary on suspicion of being enemy spies.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Desperately so. By the time they arrived in my office they were in a terrible state. I told them they had set a splendid example, and were clearly invincible.’

‘What did they want?’

‘Oh, an army.’

‘Pity. Brave souls.’

‘I’ve just seen their ambassador – you know him I think, van Verduynen. Assured me that the Dutch will resist with the same stubbornness and perseverance they have always shown.’

‘Without an army,’ the King added softly.

‘The Belgian ambassador assures me of victory. Says they are ten times stronger than in 1914.’

‘And they have our prayers.’

‘Not forgetting our own Expeditionary Force,’ Halifax added a trifle too quickly, missing the irony.

The conversation was proving difficult, and at first Halifax was relieved when they were diverted by the arrival of the Queen, Elizabeth. Halifax responded to her warm smile by kissing her hand and enquiring after the children, but he was to find no relaxation on this occasion.

‘Edward,’ the Queen began, ‘we are so disappointed.’

The Minister stooped once more. ‘I’m a little mystified myself. It’s not easy to explain but … I thought – I think – that Winston’s temperament, however unreliable and impetuous, may be better suited for this particular moment than perhaps is mine.’

‘You don’t sound terribly certain of it,’ the King commented.

‘I’m not. Certainty is a luxury at times like these. But think of it this way, if I were Prime Minister I would have Winston prowling up and down outside Downing Street. You know how much damage he can cause when things go to his head. So better the tiger inside the cage.’

‘With you holding the key.’

‘Yes, something like that.’

‘Until he has been either tamed or trampled by events,’ the Queen added. ‘Nothing lasts for ever in this chaotic world, Edward. Your turn will come.’

Halifax nodded diffidently in the manner of all Englishmen confronted by their own ambition.

‘Oh, Winston!’ Elizabeth uttered the name in exasperation, and without affection. ‘He will cause problems, you know he will. Always has.’

‘And already is,’ Halifax responded. ‘Wants Beaverbrook back.’

‘What?’ Elizabeth exclaimed. She neither liked nor trusted Max Beaverbrook, a Canadian émigré who had spent a long life charting a career through some exceptionally murky waters. He had been a Cabinet Minister during the last war, was now a peer and the immensely powerful owner of the Daily Express, and would for ever be an incorrigible conspirator. In his time he had schemed against both Churchill and the present Royal Family; it appeared that Churchill was far more ready to forgive him than was the Queen.

‘Wants to put him in charge of aircraft production,’ Halifax added for detail.

‘He must be stopped,’ Elizabeth insisted. ‘Beaverbrook is incapable of responsibility. Remember …’ She waved her hand in exasperation. There was so much to remember from Beaverbrook’s long career, not least his unflagging public support for her despicable brother-in-law, the abdicated Edward.

The King, less voluble, was nevertheless shaking his head. ‘No, no, it won’t do. I must write to Winston immediately.’

‘Yes, hobble his horse,’ the Queen insisted.

Halifax swallowed deep, calculating. Should he mention the other matter? But he was exhausted by the events of the last few days and no longer trusted his own judgement. Instead he allowed base instinct to rule and to stir the Prime Minister’s pot.

‘He also wants Bracken as a Privy Councillor.’

‘No!’ Elizabeth once more led the objections, more vehement than ever. ‘Bracken as part of the King’s own private council? That we cannot have.’ Membership of the Council was an exceptional honour reserved for the most senior in the land, not a jumped-up Irish adventurer. She hooked her arm through her husband’s and clasped him tightly, as if they both required an extra measure of support. ‘Those men around Mr Churchill,’ she exclaimed, ‘are not gentlemen.’

‘I fear the government is being given over to gangsters,’ Halifax muttered miserably. He knew that both the King and Queen believed it to be largely his fault.

They wandered on in silence, skirting the lake, passing beyond rhododendrons that were raising flower-drenched branches in seasonal triumph, until Elizabeth turned to her husband, as always wishing to share his burden when he appeared distressed. ‘A penny for those thoughts of yours, my dear.’

The King seemed startled for a moment, dragged back from distant troubles. ‘I was thinking, well … like you, how very much I had wanted Edward for the job. And then worrying – just a little – how can I put it? About us and the Germans. That our gangsters may not be as good as theirs.’

It was beyond midnight when Churchill’s private detective, Inspector Thompson, ushered the woman into Churchill’s study. Churchill was busy writing a letter and didn’t look up. Without being asked, Thompson refilled his master’s glass, then offered a drink to the woman. With a curt shake of the head, she declined. Thompson left, closing the door behind him quietly.

Only then did Churchill raise his eyes.

‘Didn’t know if you would come.’

‘Didn’t want to. But your private policeman waved his warrant card. You know we Germans are helpless in the face of authority.’

Ruth Mueller was around fifty with a thin, elegant face that had worn well and fading blonde hair trimmed severely at the neck. She had probably cut it herself. There were other signs of self-reliance about her, apart from defiant eyes – her tweed suit was frayed at the cuffs and clearly designed for someone several pounds heavier, her shoes were old, her fingers unadorned by any jewellery. She held an ancient handbag protectively in her lap.

‘You look well,’ he offered clumsily.

‘No thanks to you.’ Her vocabulary was precise, her accent stiff.

He cleared his throat in irritation. He could still remember his surprise at their first encounter. He had received a letter from an R. Mueller explaining that the writer was a refugee from Germany, had an academic background as an historian, and wondering whether Churchill might be in need of any researchers for his forthcoming writings. The letter had added in impassioned terms that the threat of events in Europe were so imminent and the lack of understanding about them so immense in everyone but Churchill that he was the only man in Europe the writer wished to work for.

It had been a timely letter, arriving at Chartwell at the moment when Churchill, under severe pressure from both his publishers and his multiple creditors, had turned once more to his History of the English-Speaking Peoples, a book commissioned many years previously and repeatedly pushed aside for the distractions of politics. Yet as interested as Churchill was in politics, for the past decade politics had displayed precious little interest in him. He had been a political outcast, lost in the wilderness, out of office and largely ignored. So he had picked up his pen once more, believing that his History would in all likelihood be his last endeavour on this earth, and in a typically impetuous moment had written offering R. Mueller a position on his team of research assistants.

He was shaken when, on the appointed day, a woman had turned up. Churchill was not good with women, not in a professional sense. For him they were creatures of romance, to be admired when the moment was right, then left in their drawing rooms while the menfolk got on with business. He’d had severe doubts about giving them the vote and was aggravated beyond endurance by most of those who had found their way into Parliament. When, with some awkwardness, he had sat R. Mueller down and suggested there had been some confusion but he might have a vacancy on his staff for an additional typist, she had not taken it well. She was a qualified historian, she told him, one who had spent several years researching an authoritative biography of the Fuehrer. Her abilities had been recognized even by the Gestapo. They had visited her several times and suggested several other professional avenues for her to pursue, ranging from a teaching position in almost any other subject than Hitler studies, which she had declined, to a librarianship in Dachau, which she had avoided only by fleeing. But even the Gestapo hadn’t suggested she be a typist. She had waved Churchill’s letter of appointment and insisted that she be given the proper job on his staff.

The engagement had lasted three weeks. She was brilliant, incisive, immensely hard-working, and impossible. When she had discovered that he was spending most of his time working on a history of the English-speaking world, she had asked why he wasn’t writing about the contemporary threat in Europe. He had offered many reasons: he was under considerable contractual obligation to his publishers, he had told her, and people were fed up with him going on about impending war. Anyway, it was necessary for him to think about his financial survival. She had looked him in the eye and told him that survival was about much more than his silk underwear and champagne. It had been the last time they had spoken. Until tonight.

‘Many circumstances have changed since we last met, Frau Mueller,’ he began, smiling.

If he was expecting congratulation, there was no sign of it.

‘I have a war to fight. Against your Herr Hitler. I was wondering if you would like to help.’

‘Help you?’ she enquired, startled.

‘Help Britain. I know it is a lot to ask.’

‘Help? How?’ She stared at him fiercely, across a desk that was cluttered with piles of papers weighed down by gold medals and surrounded by bottles of pills, potions, a magnifying glass, two spectacle cases and a small pot of toothpicks. There were also two cuffs made of card to prevent his sleeves getting dirty.

He was examining her, weighing her up. ‘I take a risk even in having you here. But it is a time when risk arrives with my breakfast and lingers on to tuck me in at night. We face a formidable opponent in Germany and its formidable armies. We also face Hitler.’ He began jabbing his chest with his finger. ‘I face Hitler. I, Winston Churchill. And yet I don’t know him. One of the few significant men in Europe I have never met.’ The room was dark except for the light of his desk lamp, yet she could see the exhaustion that hovered behind his eyes. ‘He refused to meet me, you know. In 1932 when I was motoring in Europe, inspecting the old battlefields. All the rest, Chamberlain, Halifax, Lloyd George, they met him. But not me. He simply refused. Mistook me for a man with no future, apparently.’

‘He may yet be right.’

‘Indeed he may,’ Churchill muttered, refusing to rise to the bait. ‘My father was a great English statesman, Frau Mueller. It’s partly due to him that you are here.’

‘But he’s … ?’

‘He gave me an excellent piece of advice. My father instructed me, never underestimate your enemy. Know your enemy if you want to beat him. Words of wisdom. So I was wondering … if you would be willing to help me thrash Hitler.’

‘Help? You?’

‘I am sure if an apology is owed for any misunderstandings we may have had in the past, it is freely offered on my part.’ For a man who had such an easy way with words, the apology sounded contrived to the point of insincerity.

‘You also owe me a week’s wages. You never paid.’

‘I … I …’ The old man began to splutter helplessly. This was leading nowhere. ‘Frau Mueller, you know Hitler better than any man in Britain. I need to understand him in order to crush him. I thought you might want to help in that enterprise, but if I am mistaken then I –’

‘You make it sound terribly personal.’

‘In some respects, it is.’

‘Hurt pride? Because he refused to meet you?’

‘It has nothing to do with pride!’

‘Then what are you fighting for? The British are fighting for no better reason than that you are too proud to admit that at almost every step of the way you got it wrong. Versailles. The Rhineland. Austria. Czechoslovakia –’

‘We are fighting for principle, not pride!’ he snapped, with an undertone of anger.

‘Poland? Poland’s not a principle, it’s a miserable afterthought from the last war that’s been pulled to pieces while you sat back and watched.’

He was beginning to breathe heavily, his teeth clamped fiercely around the butt of his cigar. ‘Well, now we are fighting because Hitler insists upon it, whether we like it or not. You said this was personal. It is. Both he and I have been recalled from obscurity to guide our nations through this hour. I am a Churchill, for all the strengths and faults which that has bred in me. Now I need to know what a Hitler is. And you can help me, if you will.’

‘You are a lot like him.’

‘Like That Man?’ He spat the words out, as though his face had been slapped.

‘Unruly, bad-tempered rabble-rousers, propagandists, nationalists, outsiders.’ She began ticking characteristics off on her fingers. ‘Why, you are both even painters – although in my view you show rather more talent than Hitler. And you both love war.’

‘I do not love war, as you put it.’ They both knew he was lying. ‘And perhaps I have made a mistake in thinking you could help –’

‘There is one difference which I think is very important, Mr Churchill.’

‘And what, pray, is that?’

‘I do not know you well, Mr Churchill, but I have my instincts. As a woman. And I believe you are capable of compassion – love, even. I see it in your eyes, in your words. But Hitler knows only one thing. Hatred. From his earliest days he was conditioned to hate – even to hate his father. Perhaps he hated his father most of all. He was an Austrian, a customs official on the Austro-German frontier, you see, and there is part of me which thinks that the Fuehrer’s first great coup, when he marched his army into Austria, was driven as much as anything by a desire to sweep away his father’s entire life work, to smash down his border posts and erase all traces of him. You think that ridiculous, of course, to suggest that the political ambitions of a man like Hitler could be driven by the memory of a long-dead father.’

Churchill paused before replying. ‘No, I do not think it ridiculous.’

‘Hitler has always needed someone to hate. When he was young it was his father, and now it is the Jews. Never forget how much he hates. But also never forget – never dare forget – Hitler’s extraordinary achievements. He took a nation as broken and decayed as Weimar Germany, where old women and babies starved to death in the streets, and he rebuilt it.’ Her mood had changed; it was no longer a lecture, her words carried growing passion. ‘While you English were clinging to your old ways, he built something new – not just the autobahns and barracks but a new people. He ripped out their sadness and restored their hope. He has raised them high and made them feel all but invincible. Germany is a land where no one starves any more. And what does it matter if a few Jews or Social Democrats don’t join in the general joy? What do a few cracked heads matter when an entire people who had been denied any sort of future have been lifted up and made proud once more? For the happiness of the whole, aren’t a few whispered sacrifices acceptable?’

He suspected she was goading him, but that was what he required, for his mind to be bent into focus.

‘So why did you not accept his bold new world?’

‘To my shame I did. For several years. I was one of those young mothers of Weimar who had starved like all the rest. Do you know how we survived in those years after the war, Mr Churchill, do you have any conception of what it was like? Once a month, every pay day, we hired a taxi to take us to the market – a taxi, not because we were rich but because every moment that passed could be measured in gold. With every breath we took, the money in our pockets grew more worthless, like butter on a hot stove. If we were lucky what had been worth a king’s ransom the previous week would now buy a few essentials, and if we weren’t lucky, if we were delayed, if the taxi was late, perhaps not even that. We stood in line, and prayed that by the time we reached the head of the queue there would still be something left, and that the price wouldn’t have shot out of sight even while we looked on. So in the end you stopped queuing and started pushing, and those that couldn’t push got trampled. We would spend everything we had, everything! Every last pfennig in our pockets. Then we would climb back into the taxi with whatever we had been able to buy and go home. Sometimes we might have meat, sometimes it would be off a cheese stall, other times just vegetables. But whatever it was would have to last us an entire month, until the next pay day, because we had nothing left. Nothing. All my jewellery gone, all our best clothes pawned. Can you understand that? I’m not talking about money for champagne but money for a little sugar and milk and bread.’ Her voice suddenly softened and began to break. ‘Nothing left for school. For medical bills. For heating in winter. And eventually, Mr Churchill, it wasn’t enough even for bread. One day I woke up and discovered I had no more milk for my baby. A week later she was dead.’

‘My heart breaks for you,’ he whispered.

‘No one starves under Hitler. And as long as we ate we gave thanks. We gave money when the Brown Shirts came round with their begging buckets, we gave salutes as their parades passed in the streets and we closed our ears to those noises in the night. When we woke up we might hear whispers that one neighbour or another had disappeared. It seemed a small price to pay for the food on our plates.’

‘So why did you eventually … ?’

She looked into her lap, her fingers running distractedly along the frayed edges of her cuffs.

‘If only I had a simple answer. There was a madness about our lives that infected us all. How mad can you get, driving into starvation in the back of a taxi? You know, Mr Churchill, in the whole of the last war when I was a young woman, I never heard a single shot fired. But under Weimar, shots were being fired all the time – at each other. Our leaders, our opponents, eventually even at the bread queues. Our streets became a battleground, our schools the headquarters. Children grew more used to the sound of gunfire than they were to their teachers’ voices. Instead of carrying around schoolbooks they began carrying around knives and hammers; their sports teams became nothing more than gangs of thugs. Can you imagine how much I and every other mother in the land begged for it to end? Then Hitler came along and made it all seem so simple. It was the fault of the Jews and the democrats. And we asked ourselves, what good was democracy if the water didn’t run and the lamps went dark? Better that we see by the light of burning torches. Our political leaders had been so weak, so false, but Hitler seemed above all that. Different. Exciting. Almost – what is the word? – spiritual.’

‘And we had Stanley Baldwin,’ Churchill muttered in contempt. ‘So tell me, pray, why you put it all behind you. Why did you choose to resist when so many went along with it?’

‘It crept up on you so slowly, what was really happening. Made it so easy to accept. Of course, there were those that had to be punished, the guilty men. The Marxists, the Social Democrats, the Jews. They almost seemed to prove their guilt when so many of them were shot trying to escape. But slowly it crept closer to us all. Everyone became a suspect. We had to give up our friends, our lovers, our beliefs – even renounce Belief itself. You could trust no one. And suddenly there was no private life at all, no space even to think.’ Her head fell to hide the pain. ‘After my baby died I went back to work – as a teacher in the Grundschule, the primary school, where my other child, my son, was a pupil. One day I was supervising in the library when the Brown Shirts came in. Very polite, apologized for the disturbance. But they had come for the Jews, they announced, and started leading the Jewish children out, one by one. I asked what the children had done, and the Brown Shirt leader just looked at me curiously. “Done? They are Jews.” But they were my pupils, my son’s classmates, my Jews, and I demanded to know why they were being taken. The Brown Shirt’s attitude changed; a rage came over his face. “Are you a Jew?” he asked. And I almost fell over in my rush to deny the charge – of course I wasn’t a Jew. I was furious with him, how dare he accuse … ?’

She was silent for a moment, needing to recover herself. When her head came up once more the eyes were filled with tears. ‘After he had gone I realized what had already become of me. I watched as they dragged them all away. I looked at the empty spaces in the library, the schoolbooks still open on the tables, the satchels on the backs of the chairs, and wondered when the Brown Shirts would be coming back for more.’ She leant forward, bent with feeling. ‘No, I can’t pretend I saw it all at that moment, that I became an opponent. I am not a hero, Mr Churchill, and I had no idea where they were taking them. But I knew the Brown Shirts would be back, and eventually they would come for my son, and either he would join them, or be taken by them. This was the new Germany, my son’s Germany, and I wanted to find out more about the man who had made it. That is when I started reading about Hitler, talking about him, studying him. In the end I decided to write about him. A biography.’

‘You were seeking to know your enemy …’

‘My enemy?’ She shook her head. ‘No, he wasn’t my enemy, not at first. The book wasn’t intended to be an attack upon him, I was doing no more than trying to understand. So I started asking questions about him, but that meant that very soon they began asking questions about me. I had become their enemy without my realizing it.’

‘I am so sorry.’

But she had no desire for his pity. Already she had shared with him far more than she had intended. Once again her life was being invaded. It was time to push him back. ‘Did your father know his enemies?’

‘No, I think not,’ Churchill replied, startled at the sudden change of subject. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Because I’ve noticed that when you talk about him you seem … stiff. Formal. Almost anxious.’

‘I loved my father.’

‘No. You were afraid of him, I think.’

Churchill bridled. ‘My whole life has been dedicated to his memory.’

‘Dominated by his memory, perhaps. A bit like Hitler.’

His hand slapped down on the desktop to demand her silence. It landed with such force that the toothpicks jumped in their pot. ‘I asked you here to talk about the Fuehrer, not to offer crass remarks about my father, a man whom you never met.’

‘I’ve never met Hitler.’

And they were back where they had always been.

‘I have no time for cheap comparisons, Frau Mueller. I thought you might help. Will you?’

Her cheeks flushed. ‘Help you? Why should I? I don’t like you, Mr Churchill. I don’t like any politicians. They’ve done nothing but ruin my life.’ She sprang from her chair, not wishing to be near him any longer. ‘What reason could I have for wanting to help you?’

‘Not me personally. Our crusade.’

‘In which millions will die. To save your old man’s pride.’

‘To save both our countries.’

‘I have no country any more.’

‘Then do it for the simple pleasure of proving yourself right – and for the satisfaction of proving That Man wrong!’ He was shouting, although he hadn’t intended to.

‘You and your ridiculous male vanity. You two men will destroy the world with your war. You are so much alike.’

She was already at the door.

‘You will come again,’ he barked, the intonation halfway between question and command.

She had opened the door and was almost out.

‘Please!’ he called after her. ‘I need you.’

She turned, startled. Then she was gone.