Читать книгу Churchill’s Hour - Michael Dobbs - Страница 7

Anthony Eden, the Foreign Secretary, was a man of both power and charm; some even said that he would be the next Prime Minister. Yet beneath his suave and immaculately groomed exterior there were occasions when he betrayed the inner tension that left him thin and always anxious.

‘Try hanging it on the other wall, will you?’ he instructed tersely.

The two workmen cast a disdainful eye at the politician. ‘Not the only thing that could do with a little hanging,’ one of them muttered darkly, but out of earshot. ‘This wall, that wall, whichever wall he wants, it’s still only a ruddy painting.’

Eden turned from his examination of the panelling. ‘You have a problem?’

‘Not really.’

‘Speak up, man. Better in than out.’

‘Well, sir, I don’t understand why we have to move the blessed thing at all. Been there long enough. Why do we have to move it just ’cos some Americans are coming?’

‘Because it’s George the Third.’

The explanation was met with a blank stare.

‘He was mad,’ Eden continued.

‘But still a king,’ the workman countered doggedly. ‘Our king.’

‘I take your point. But kings aren’t particularly popular with Americans. Particularly this one.’

The towering portrait of George III with its ornate gilt frame had dominated the meeting room of the Foreign Office since, well, ever since anyone could remember, but now it was to be moved. Eden had instructed that all appropriate arrangements were to be made for welcoming the forthcoming American delegation and had clearly come to the conclusion that a portrait of the mad king who had helped ignite the American Revolution would cast an inappropriate shadow over proceedings. It had to be moved somewhere less prominent.

‘Let’s try it on the other wall,’ he suggested, waving an elegant cuff but without much sign of conviction.

The workman and his partner didn’t move a muscle.

‘What?’

‘Not going to work. Not there. Not anywhere,’ the workman said.

‘Why on earth not?’ Eden enquired, stuffing his thumbs deep into the pockets of his waistcoat.

‘Look at it, sir.’ The workman took a step forward. ‘It’s just too big. Turn his face to the wall and you’re still going to see his ermine slippers sticking out underneath. It’s enormous.’ Then, less loudly: ‘And we should know. Been moving it all morning.’

Eden cast a dark eye at the workman. He had thought him a monarchist, but now he suspected him of being simply a troublemaker. ‘Are you a Communist?’

‘What?’

‘Oh, never mind.’

The Foreign Secretary went back to examining his dilemma while the workman picked at the fragment of his cigarette with a broken orange fingernail. ‘Why the hell we have to be so nice to the bloody Yanks is beyond me,’ he said, turning to his colleague. ‘Late for the last war, they was. Run away from this war. Doing nothing but sitting on their backsides in Wall Street and soaking us dry.’

Suddenly Eden turned, furious. He’d heard. ‘We need them because right now we have no one else.’ He strode up to the man who he was now certain was a Bolshevik. ‘Where else do you think we’ll get the destroyers and other weapons we need to win this war?’

But the workman was not to be cowed. He was no revolutionary, but in his eyes it was Eden and his kind who had got them into this bloody war in the first place. If he was to be asked for his opinion, he was going to give it.

‘I hear we can’t afford it. Can’t afford the Americans as friends.’

Eden snorted in exasperation. That was the difficulty with men such as this who wandered into every corner and crevice of the Foreign Office. They heard too much, yet understood so little. ‘Of course we can’t afford it, but that’s no longer the point. The Americans have suggested they lend us the matériel instead, for the duration of the war. We borrow everything—the bombers, fighters, ships, guns, tanks, vehicles—then afterwards give them back. It’s called Lend-Lease.’

‘But not fighting…’

‘Not fighting, exactly. But assisting. Making it possible for us to win the war. A partnership.’ He clapped his hands. ‘But that’s it!’ he cried. ‘We could get another picture. Put it alongside. Something…well…American. Don’t we have something down in the basement?’

‘We’ve got a George Washington somewhere,’ the workman’s colleague began.

‘Splendid! Fetch it up. Put it alongside. It’ll balance the whole thing out.’

The workman was less enthused. ‘Stupid pillock,’ he said softly and very slowly to his colleague. ‘We’ll be shifting pictures all ruddy afternoon.’

Which is precisely what happened. They hauled and sweated their way up from the basement with the new portrait, a remnant from the State Visit of President Woodrow Wilson in 1918. The basement was three floors down. Which meant three floors back up. But no matter how much they shifted the paintings around the room, still it would not work. The portrait of the first American President was only a fraction the size of the umpteenth English king, and in whatever position they were tried, the result looked more like deliberate insult than diplomatic master stroke. Eden eventually threw up his hands in despair.

‘You’ll have to take them both down to the basement,’ he said.

‘What? Take down the King?’ the workman asked in bewilderment. ‘To the basement?’

‘We can’t afford to offend the Americans. There’s no other way,’ the Foreign Secretary announced before examining his pocket watch and rushing from the room. He left the workman squatting on his haunches, trying to manufacture another spindly cigarette.

‘Take down the King? To the basement?’ he kept saying over and over, as if through repetition he would come to understanding. ‘Makes you wonder, don’t it?’

‘What’s that?’ his colleague asked.

‘Who the bloody hell’s in charge here.’

The bathroom was small, narrow and hopelessly impractical. It had no windows and only the most rudimentary of ventilation systems, and was buried behind several feet of concrete. The planners who had built the fortified Annexe around the corner from Downing Street had wanted to ensure that, whatever else happened to him, Churchill wasn’t going—in his own words—‘to be blown out of his own bloody bath’. It was no idle threat; bath time was one of his set rituals. He would throw himself into the water, submerging completely, then surface once more, blowing like a whale. In between dives he would reflect, dictate, compose and shout orders, all the while cheating outrageously on the maximum level of bath water recommended by his own scrimping Government.

A flustered assistant came stumbling from the room, brow beaded in sweat, his glasses steamed, his notebook crumpled, the ink running down the page, nearly knocking into Randolph as he fled. Another male secretary was hovering, waiting his turn to go in, and Sawyers was fussing away near at hand, but both of them drew back as the Prime Minister’s son appeared, clad in the service dress of a captain, No. 8 Commando.

‘Papa?’ Randolph said, standing in the doorway. He took a step forward and was immediately enveloped in a fog of condensation, through which the outline of his father began to emerge, pink, perspiring, standing in front of the sink, shaving, completely naked.

‘Don’t shut that door,’ Winston snapped, wiping away at the mirror. ‘Not unless you want me to cut my own damned throat.’

‘Why don’t you bathe in St James’s Park,’ Randolph said. ‘It could scarcely be more public.’

‘Whaddya mean?’

‘You think Hitler wanders around the Reichs Chancellery waving his baubles about? It’s so bloody undignified.’

They couldn’t help arguing. Always had. For them it was like breath, and love, and light—as natural as the dew following the night.

‘I blame myself,’ Churchill began testily, ‘for sending you to the wrong type of school. Private showers and all that nonsense. It’s unhealthy. Encourages misconduct when you’re behind locked doors. And lack of candour when you’re not.’ He resumed scraping away the soap on his chin with a large open-bladed razor. ‘At Harrow, we used to be naked all the time, in the swimming pool, in the showers. That’s when I first met the men who now occupy some of the highest positions in the land—men of the cloth and of the law, even some in my own Cabinet. That’s why they all trust me. They know I have nothing to hide.’ He threw the blade into the sink and began groping for a towel. ‘Nakedness teaches you to look another man directly in the eye.’

‘Better still, not to trust him behind your back.’

Churchill turned. ‘Let’s not argue, Randolph. Not on your last day. Not before you leave for the warrior’s life in the desert.’

‘Cairo is scarcely the desert, Papa. Must you romanticize everything?’

‘There will be nothing romantic in what is about to take place in the Middle East. Where you are going could yet prove to be the fulcrum of the whole war.’

‘Is that why we’ve been sent by those weevils in the War Office to train amongst the ice floes of the Clyde? So we can serve in the Middle East?’

‘From what I’ve heard, the officers of your regiment appear to have undertaken most of their training in the bar rooms and fleshpots of Glasgow.’

‘What else is there to do on a winter’s night in such a God-awful place?’

They were at it again. Bristling. Born to fight. And Randolph carried with him the appalling burden for a fighting man of being the son of a Prime Minister. No one took him seriously. He wanted to be part of this war and was desperate to be sent overseas in search of action, for whatever else they might say about him, he was no coward. He’d joined his father’s old regiment, the 4th Hussars, in the hope it would get him sent to a battlefront, but they made it no further than Hull—held back, it was said, because he was his father’s son. So he had transferred to a commando unit—surely there would be action there. But only brawls on the street with Scotsmen. So the bathroom became a battleground, too.

Suddenly the moment was broken by a familiar voice.

‘If you’ll excuse me, Mr Randolph.’

Sawyers, damn the man. When he issued a request it carried all the authority of high command, even with his lisp. Reluctantly Randolph made way as the valet placed a set of carefully laundered silk underwear over the wooden towel rail, but his real purpose was to scold them both, reminding them that this might prove to be their last moment together on earth and they might never have the opportunity of forgiving or forgetting what was said between them. The servant managed to convey all this with no more than a raised eyebrow.

Churchill took his valet’s cue. ‘My darling boy,’ he said, and instantly a truce was declared. ‘You are about to embark upon the greatest adventure of your lifetime, and I know that whatever it is you are about to do will be done with honour and with formidable distinction.’

He finished climbing into his underwear and dressing gown, and was decent once again. ‘You know, Randolph, nine months ago when I became Prime Minister, I promised the people victory. Victory whatever the cost; that’s what I told them. They have borne the terrible cost yet seen precious little of the victory. So I beg you—be brave, fight boldly. The Middle East may not be the place where the final triumph is decided, but let it at least be where it is begun.’

‘I’ll do my best, Papa.’

‘Brighter days lie ahead, of that I am certain. So in everything you do, be a Churchill!’

And they embraced.

‘But how shall we win, Papa—finally?’

‘Not alone. With others.’

‘What others?’

‘The Americans, of course.’

‘The Americans?’

‘They have already taken the first step. President Roosevelt has declared that his country will become the great arsenal of democracy.’

‘Hah! He got that almost right,’ Randolph said, his tone mocking.

‘He’s agreed to lease and lend us all the materials we need,’ his father responded forcefully.

‘So that we can scrabble around as her mercenaries?’

‘It is an act of unprecedented generosity.’

‘Or unprincipled calculation! The Americans sit back and make their profits while we fight their war. The only time they ever come into a war is when it’s all but bloody over. Then they’ll crawl out from their bunkers in time to pick the pockets of the wounded.’

‘The Americans will join us! Not just as supporters and suppliers but as combatants, too. They will join with us. That I promise you.’

‘Papa, what strange world are you living in? You know what Roosevelt has said, time and again. Fight to the last Briton!’

‘Oh, but you are cruel. The President has had to act cautiously.’

‘What? You mean he’s had to keep his clothes on! He won’t step into the showers with us and he daren’t look the American voters in the eye.’

Their voices were rising once again.

‘Statesmen practise the art of the possible, Randolph.’

‘Roosevelt has the moral compass of a piece of driftwood!’

‘Such things take time.’

‘And precisely how much time do you think we have, Papa?’

‘That may well depend upon what you and your brother officers achieve in the Middle East.’

‘Then I’d better get out there,’ Randolph snapped, turning away, carried along relentlessly by his addiction to argument.

‘My boy!’ Winston called, despairing. ‘Not—like this. Not to war.’ Tears began to puddle in his eyes. ‘You know I love you.’

The words stopped Randolph in mid-stride. Slowly he turned back, and his father rushed to embrace him.

‘I’m sorry, Papa,’ Randolph sighed. ‘I fear I’m not good company at the moment. Been trying to sort out my affairs before I go, but…You know these things. So silly when you set them against war and what’s happening.’

‘You have troubles?’

He shrugged. ‘A few bills I’d completely forgotten about.’

Ah, that again. ‘How much?’ the old man asked jadedly.

‘Just a couple of hundred.’ He was unable to return his father’s steady gaze. ‘Not going to happen again, I promise you—promised Pam—I’ve given up gambling. Washed my hands of it. Mug’s game. No bloody good at it, anyway.’ He tried to make light of it—just as he had done last time.

‘I shall write you another cheque.’

‘That…would be splendid, Papa. For Pam. Mean a lot to her. And allow me to go off with a clear conscience.’

‘I shall hold you to your promise.’

But Randolph was already brighter, his confidence returning. ‘And I shall hold you to yours. Drag America into this war, and I swear—on my life as a soldier, Papa—I’ll never gamble another brass farthing.’

Churchill’s blue eyes were fixed on his son, trying to tie him to the spot, not wanting him to leave, knowing this moment might be their last. ‘May God give me enough time,’ he said softly. ‘Little by little, step by step, they will be drawn to the fight. They must. Otherwise all this suffering, all the sacrifice, the lives that have been given up…’—he faltered slightly—‘and those that are yet to be given up will have been in vain.’

‘I must go, Papa. I have a job to do.’

‘And so have I.’

‘We have an understanding?’

‘I give you my word.’

Once more Randolph threw himself into his father’s arms, then he was gone, with his father’s tears fresh upon his cheeks.

Churchill watched him go. For a long time he stood on the spot, reaching out after his son’s shadow, clinging to the echo of his words, wondering if they would ever see each other again. Then he whispered.

‘Not today, Randolph, not tomorrow perhaps, but they will come. Before it is too late. I promise you.’

The rocket was one of Churchill’s ‘little toys’. He was fond of his toys. He had set up a specialist group of boffins and pyromaniacs to produce them—‘any new weapon, tool or war-thing that might assist us in the task of smashing the enemy to smithereens,’ as he had put it. The official designation of the group was MD1, but to most it was known simply as the ‘Singed Eyebrow Squad’.

This morning they were testing a small rocket, no more than three feet in height. What the precise purpose of the weapon was to be, no one was entirely sure; the purpose would come later, after the principle had been proven. Churchill had gathered an unusually large group for the weekend; not only family and personal aides, but two Americans and an assortment of braid from all three services, with a couple of Ministers thrown in for ballast. After breakfast they had gathered on Beacon Hill overlooking Chequers, wrapped in overcoats and scarves against the chill February air, the low sun casting long shadows while an inspection party of crows flew languidly overhead. Those responsible for the day’s matinée scurried like grave-snatchers through the mist in the pasture below, while Sawyers weaved his way through the entourage on the hilltop dispensing coffee and shots of whisky.

‘Faster, man,’ Churchill encouraged, ‘or we’ll all freeze.’

‘If we’re going to invite a three-ring circus every weekend, we’ll be needing more hands to help.’

‘What? Are you saying you can’t cope?’

‘I can. Boiler can’t.’

‘What the hell’s the boiler got to do with winning the war?’

‘Do yer know where Mr Hopkins goes to read his papers?’

Churchill began to growl, his breath condensing in the slow-warming air and giving him the impression of an elderly dragon. It was bluff, and Sawyers knew it.

‘He goes to the bathroom,’ the servant continued.

‘I often read my papers in the bath.’

‘He’s not in the bath but in his overcoat. Only place in the whole house that’s kepping warm. So he tekks his work into the bathroom and disappears, like, for a couple of hour. Inconvenient fer other guests, so it is.’

Hopkins was frail, American and of huge importance. Churchill thrust out his small tumbler for another shot of warming whisky.

‘So what are you suggesting?’

‘Like I say, we need help. More hands. Two more maids.’

‘Two?’ Churchill protested.

‘Two, if we’re to kepp a fire in every room and clean sheets on beds. And help poor Mrs Landemare. She’s not getting any younger.’

Oh, but he was playing the game, and with consummate skill. Sawyers understood his master as well as any man, his foibles, his vanities, his indulgences. His meanness and his dislike of new faces, too.

‘We don’t need two, dammit. This is a war headquarters, not a holiday resort.’

‘I’m sure Mr Willkie don’t mind sleeping in a British general’s sheets, but what wi’ boiler being in such poor shape, I’m afraid there weren’t time to launder ’em, like, before he arrived.’

Churchill snorted in alarm. Upsetting Mrs Landemare would have consequences creeping close to the point of disaster; upsetting the Americans might take them far beyond. Hopkins was a close friend of Roosevelt, while Willkie had been his opponent in the last presidential election. They had arrived as the President’s personal emissaries—‘to check up on me’, as Churchill had grumbled in exasperation. And to check up on Britain. Roosevelt had announced the principle of Lend-Lease but now he needed to decide how much to send and to lend. Some of his advisers had been whispering in his ear that he wouldn’t be getting much of it back, that most of it might soon be falling into the clutches of the German High Command. So he had sent Hopkins and Willkie to test the temper of both the country and its wayward leader: as the President had put it to Hopkins, ‘we need to know whether the Brits will carry on fighting—and whether Churchill will ever stop.’

Churchill knew all this, knew that his American guests had been sent to spy, and he had responded by trying to seduce and suborn them. Their conclusions—and therefore their comforts—were of immense importance. It was the opportunity Sawyers had been waiting for.

‘A ship lost for ha’p’orth of tar,’ he mused, ‘and a war for an unlaundered sheet.’ He shook his head in mock resignation.

‘One!’ Churchill proclaimed defiantly, but knowing he had lost. ‘One extra maid. That’s as far as we go.’ He glared at Sawyers. ‘And you’d better make sure she’s up to the job.’

Oh, but she was. Sawyers had already made sure of that. A niece of Mrs Landemare’s husband. French, but almost one of the family.

‘I’ll do me best,’ the servant sighed, turning away to tend to the guests, and to smile.

In the valley below, the huddle of technicians had broken and a man was waving his arm furiously. From on top of the viewing hill, an officer of the Royal Artillery returned the signal and came hurrying across to Churchill.

‘Permission to proceed, Prime Minister?’

‘Unless you’d prefer us all to freeze first.’

And there was more waving, and scurrying to a safe distance in the valley below, followed by several tense moments of—nothing. While Churchill stamped his foot in impatience, the Americans turned and smiled graciously. The moments stretched. The senior officers seemed grim and the Ministers embarrassed. Yet suddenly, beneath them, the mists parted like a biblical sea and they saw the rocket beginning to climb into the air. It was hesitant at first, as though uncertain of its direction, the steam and smoke from its motor bursting forth in fits and starts, until it had climbed to perhaps fifty feet in height. Then the engine coughed. The rocket seemed to lose faith. It pitched over.

It was at this point, as all seemed lost, that the machine found its life once more and roared into action. It headed straight for the group on top of the hill, leaving a trail of angry, swirling vapours behind it. The circling crows cried in alarm as everyone on the ground scattered like mice, their sticks flying, hats tumbling, all dignity gone, until with one final bullying roar the weapon embedded itself not twenty feet from where they had been standing.

Sawyers alone had not moved. As the smoke and panic finally dissolved, the others collected their wits and fallen headgear, and rose to find him still holding a tray brimming with glasses. Not a drop had been spilled.

Churchill was panting; he had shown surprising agility for a man of his years. As the others gathered round he waved in the direction of the still smouldering rocket. ‘Needs a little tweaking, don’t you think?’

‘Winston,’ Hopkins said, reaching for a drink, ‘if it does that to us, think what it might do to the damned Germans. You might yet win the war. Terrorize them into surrender.’

‘Yes, somehow cannonballs seem so much more logical. In celebration of which I think perhaps we shall watch the Nelson film tonight,’ Churchill announced.

‘Lucky man, was the admiral,’ Sawyers muttered as he gathered up the remaining glasses.

‘What are you grumbling about, man?’

‘A pot o’ powder and a bit o’ breeze, that’s all he ever asked. Like a personal valet, he was. Only thing he ever wanted was tools to finish the job. One extra maid. How are we supposed to manage wi’ just one extra maid?’

‘The tools to finish the job?’ Suddenly Churchill let out a roar of merriment and clapped the servant on the shoulder. ‘Sawyers, at times you can be brilliant. You are simply too stupid to realize the fact. Ah, but you are fortunate to serve a man like me, someone who is able to pick the diamonds out from the slag heap of your mind.’

Sawyers stared back blankly.

‘Hurry up, man,’ Churchill barked. ‘We’ll be wanting luncheon in a little while.’ And with that he strode happily down the hill.

The broadcast he made the following evening from Chequers was his first in five months. It was still being written right up to the moment of delivery. It bore no resemblance to any earlier draft, for Sawyers’ moment of insight had unleashed a flood of fresh thoughts.

Churchill sat at his working table surrounded by the books and oil paintings that filled the walls of the Hawtrey Room, his back to the fire, his script lit by nothing more than a single bulb beneath a green shade, the atmosphere dense and theatrical, almost conspiratorial. He was still scribbling fresh thoughts in the margin of his typed script even as the sound engineer, standing in the doorway, indicated it was time. A growl grew in his throat, a little like the sound of a torpedo about to burst from its tube, and he had begun.

He welcomed them, reassured them, drew them in, recounted to them what they already knew, but gave them fresh heart in the retelling.

After the heavy defeats of the German Air Force by our fighters in August and September, Herr Hitler did not dare attempt the invasion of this island, although he had every need to do so and had made vast preparations. Baffled in this mighty project, he sought to break the spirit of the British nation by the bombing, first of London and afterwards of our great cities.

He made it seem like times past. Oh, if only they were…

It has now been proved, to the admiration of the world, and of our friends in the United States, that this form of blackmail by murder and terrorism, so far from weakening the spirit of the British nation, has only roused it to a more intense and universal flame than was ever seen before!

Through the words of defiance they could hear him sipping his whisky, wetting his lips for what was to come.

All through these dark winter months the enemy has had the power to drop three or four tons of bombs upon us for every ton we could send to Germany in return.

If he seemed to falter a little, it was only for dramatic emphasis, to lead them on.

We are arranging so that presently this will be rather the other way around…

Defiance—and mockery. The universal sign that the British were not yet completely buggered.

Meanwhile, London and our big cities have had to stand their pounding. They remind me of the British squares at Waterloo. They are not squares of soldiers. They do not wear scarlet coats. They are just ordinary English, Scottish and Welsh folk—men, women and children—standing steadfastly together. But their spirit is the same, their glory is the same, and in the end their victory will be greater than far-famed Waterloo!

In every corner of the country, in places of work, of rest, of relaxation, even in places of suffering, chins came up and the blood flowed a little faster. But this was not to be a message simply for British ears. Thanks to Sawyers, Churchill’s words were to find both a new focus and a new audience. His words were weapons in this war, and now he aimed them directly at Americans.

While this has been happening, a mighty tide of sympathy, of good will and of effective aid has begun to flow across the Atlantic in support of the world cause which is at stake. Distinguished Americans have come over to see things here at the front and to find out how the United States can help us best and soonest. In Mr Hopkins, who has been my frequent companion during these last few weeks, we have the envoy of the President, a President who has been newly re-elected to his august office. In Mr Wendell Willkie we have welcomed the champion of the great Republican Party. We may be sure that they will both tell the truth about what they have seen over here, and more than that we do not ask. The rest we leave with good confidence to the judgement of the President, the Congress and the people of the United States.

He said these words, but he did not believe them. Churchill had never met the President and had grave doubts about his judgement. He didn’t trust the Congress and he knew that the last thing on earth the American people desired was to get involved in Churchill’s bloody war.

It now seems certain that the Government and people of the United States intend to supply us with all that is necessary for victory.

All that is necessary for victory—short of actual help. They’d sent those ancient destroyers, of course, but demanded their thirty pieces of silver in return. Many of those much-vaunted destroyers had been useless, little more than rusting barges with clapped-out engines and rotting hulls—although someone had taken the trouble to ensure that the washrooms were equipped with towels and fresh soap. When would the Americans learn? You couldn’t fight a war with clean hands.

In the last war the United States sent two million men across the Atlantic. But this is not a war of vast armies firing immense masses of shells at one another. We do not need the gallant armies which are forming throughout the American union. We do not need them this year, nor next year, nor any year that I can foresee.

He swallowed his shame, telescope to unseeing eye, even as he uttered these profound deceits. He had no choice. Step by step, as he had explained to Randolph. He had to pretend to be at one with Roosevelt, to be alongside him, joined to him at the hip—otherwise he would never be able to lead him astray.

In order to win the war, Hitler must destroy Great Britain. He may carry havoc into the Balkan States. He may tear great provinces out of Russia…

Yes, an attack on Russia, that would happen some time, of that Churchill was certain. It was the nature of the Nazi beast, couldn’t restrain itself. But when? Would it be in time to save Britain?

He may march to the Caspian; he may march to the gates of India. All this will avail him nothing. It may spread his curse more widely throughout Europe and Asia, but it will not avert his doom. With every month that passes the many proud and once happy countries he is now holding down by brute force and vile intrigue are learning to hate the Prussian yoke and the Nazi name as nothing has ever been hated so fiercely and so widely among men before. And all the time, masters of the sea and air, the British Empire—nay, in a certain sense the whole English-speaking world—will be on his track, bearing with them the swords of justice.

‘In a certain sense the whole English-speaking world’? In what sense, pray? Roosevelt and his Americans might pretend they were up to wielding the sword of justice, but the last place they intended to bury it was deep inside the guts of the German war machine.

The other day President Roosevelt gave his opponent in the late presidential election a letter of introduction to me, and in it he wrote out a verse in his own handwriting from Longfellow, which he said applies to you people as it does to us. Here is the verse:

Sail on, O Ship of State!

Sail on, O Union, strong and great!

Humanity with all its fears,

With all the hopes of future years,

Is hanging breathless on thy fate!

Roosevelt was sending poetry and bars of soap when what Churchill wanted was guns, more guns and bloody shells! But he must turn it, use the cascade of words to excite the passions and dull their wits, to avert their gaze so that he could launch his monstrous deception…

What is the answer that I shall give, in your name, to this great man, the thrice-chosen head of a nation of a hundred and thirty millions? Here is the answer I shall give to President Roosevelt.

Put your confidence in us. Give us your faith and your blessing and, under Providence, all will be well. We shall not fail or falter. We shall not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of battle nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down.

He paused for the briefest moment. His voice lifted.

Give us the tools—and we will finish the job!

Oh, it was true Churchillian splendour, rhetoric that rang around the world. Yet he meant not a word. It was a promise he never had the smallest intention of keeping. Like blossom before the frost, it would vanish before the day was done. The bombardment of words was intended for one purpose only, to encourage the Americans to move forward an inch upon a slippery slope. After that, he would drag them the other three thousand miles.