Читать книгу Churchill’s Hour - Michael Dobbs - Страница 9

Spring. New life. Daffodils. Crocus. Blossom. Warmer days. Death.

The bombers were back. The intermittent raids of winter had given way to a renewed onslaught that pounded London night after night.

Queues. Britain’s way to win the war. Line after line of women waiting patiently for whatever was left. Hour after hour, without knowing what might be there when at last they came to the head of the queue, ration book in hand, coins in purse or pocket. The Ministry of Food had just announced five exhilarating new ways of serving potato—wartime ‘champ’, hot potato salad, potato pastry, potato suet crust. ‘And save those orange rinds,’ the official advertisement insisted. ‘Grate your orange peel and mix a little with mashed potatoes. The potatoes will turn an exciting pink colour!’

But would still be mashed potatoes.

Yet not everyone dined on pink mash. It was a foodstuff entirely unknown to Lady Emerald St John. In truth, her name was not Emerald—she had been born a Maud, but she thought it common. She was not a ‘proper’ lady, inasmuch as she was American and had married into the title, although she had parted from her husband many years previously, relieving him of not only his marital obligations but also a substantial chunk of his fortune. And, above all, Emerald was no saint. It was why people flocked to her dinner parties, always assured of entertainment, excitement, intrigue—and a little wickedness. Not sexual wickedness, Emerald had worn herself out on three husbands and was past most of that, but as the folds about her face had fallen to wrinkles, she compensated with a tongue that had developed the snagging capacity of a billhook. Sitting at one of her tables was like playing roulette with one’s reputation. Someone would always walk away a little poorer.

Pamela arrived late, just as the others were preparing to sit down. The introductions were hurried and she wasn’t concentrating; she’d squeezed in a couple of drinks on the way. But there was a Japanese gentleman, whom people addressed as ‘Your Excellency’, identifying him as the ambassador, Mamoru Shigemitsu. He seemed lost in conversation with his American counterpart, Winant, whom she recognized, and another man whom she did not, American by the cut of his clothes, tall, middle-aged, yet still athletic in build. The party was completed by two parliamentarians and their wives, a Free French naval officer and two young French women, but all eyes seemed to be on Shigemitsu.

The Japanese was small in physique and most earnest in his expression, polite, but persistent, and very defensive. That was no surprise. He had arrived at the Court of St James’s three years earlier, and with every passing season his task had grown more difficult. Japan was at war with China. It was not a popular war. The newspapers were filled with countless headlines about Japanese brutality, accompanied by disgracefully provocative photographs. Not that the British could tell the difference between a Chinese or Japanese, of course. They even delighted in their ignorance. As much as Shigemitsu tried to reassure his audiences that Japan had no intention of attacking British possessions, not a soul believed him. Yet still he did his best.

‘Japanese believe in Hakko-Ichiu,’ he said.

‘How fascinating, Your Excellency,’ the diminutive Lady St John purred across a forkful of fish. ‘What exactly does it mean?’

‘It means “all the world one family”. At peace.’

‘How beautiful. It’s a religious idea, is it? That when we’ve all finished being beastly to each other on this earth, we go to the same heaven?’

‘No, no,’ Shigemitsu protested. ‘Peace on this earth. All one family. On this earth.’

‘Oh, I see. I’m so relieved. There are so many rumours that Japan wants to attack us in the Far East. Tell me, Your Excellency, that’s not going to happen, is it?’

‘Japanese wish British people nothing but harmony,’ the Japanese responded, picking over his words as though he had a mouthful of bones.

‘And the Chinese?’

Shigemitsu swallowed his trout unchewed. He examined his plate, not wishing to catch Lady St John’s eye for fear of betraying his annoyance. Her bluntness was ill-mannered; was she female and stupid, or simply Western and therefore incorrigibly rude?

‘Our only wish is to create what we call a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.’

‘Ah, so that’s what you are doing in China. Trying to make them all prosperous. Now I understand.’

The ambassador laid down his knife and fork. Of course she didn’t understand, and the silly woman was probably incapable of doing so, but it was his duty to try to bring her to some form of awareness.

‘The European powers—French, Dutch, British—have many colonies in Asia. Control all oil and other raw materials. We consider the position…unbalanced.’ He gave a little bow, as if to indicate that he was entirely satisfied with his selection of the word. ‘Japan wants only similar influence in our own continent. Access to raw materials in Asia like Britain—even America.’

He made it sound so reasonable, but he had unwittingly opened up a new flank. The unknown American took it as an invitation to join in.

‘And you make war in order to get them,’ he stated.

The ambassador’s colour darkened. ‘We do not want war. War would not continue if Britain and America did not keep sending weapons to China along the Burma Road. My government believes that is very unfriendly act.’

‘More than ten million dead Chinese since the war started four years ago, most of them civilians. Three hundred thousand killed in Nanking in a single winter. If you want to talk about unfriendly acts, maybe we should start with that.’

‘Perhaps, sir, and begging your pardon’—he gave another little bow—‘you are not aware of the full facts of war.’

‘I guess you’re right, Mr Ambassador. I don’t know enough about war. But since I arrived in London a few days ago, I’m beginning to catch on fast.’

‘Perhaps, sir, you will permit me to suggest that you discuss the matter with your European friends, who have been fighting colonial wars for hundreds of years. They might be able to hasten your understanding.’

There was another little bob, like a karate chop.

‘Mr Ambassador,’ the American said, refusing to use the honorific title of ‘Excellency’, ‘Americans hate all colonial wars. Which is why we insist on the right to continue sending supplies to China.’

‘You will forgive me, sir, if I see American history in a slightly different colour. I believe—I ask you to correct me if this is not true—that your country purchased the entire territory of Louisiana from the French.’

‘Not the same thing at all. Louisiana isn’t a colony, it was a natural extension of the United States.’

‘A very understandable argument, sir. And it was certainly closer to the United States than Alaska, which I believe you purchased later.’

‘The territory of Alaska was practically empty. Full of nothing but fish and ice. I think there were maybe four hundred Russians living there.’

‘Unlike the islands of the Philippines, which you fought for. Forty years ago. You will please forgive me if that is an inconvenient or inaccurate fact. Or the islands of Hawaii. I believe the United States annexed them at about the same time.’

Damn, but he was good. Lady St John beamed. She hadn’t had this much fun since she had plied the then-German Ambassador, von Ribbentrop, with his own champagne and asked him to expound upon his feelings about Jews.

‘I will grant you, Mr Ambassador, that history has a stubborn streak,’ the American responded. ‘It doesn’t form itself into convenient straight lines. And the United States, like all nations, has a history that allows for questioning and criticism.’ The American seemed to be conceding, perhaps aware that the Japanese was preparing to chase him fully around the globe via Guam, Puerto Rico, Cuba and several other colonial contradictions. ‘But I am not concerned with history, sir. I am talking about today. And tomorrow. And the slaughter of tens of millions of innocent civilians. Whatever the cause, whatever the grievance, whatever the injustice for which redemption is sought, nothing can support such a cost.’

‘It is most unfortunate that today warfare carries with it such a terrible price.’

‘Which is why the United States has declared it will never become a combatant in this one.’

‘It is a most happy situation for your United States,’ the ambassador said with a smile of steel, ‘that, unlike every other nation represented around this table, you have not become involved in war. For my part, I pray most earnestly that your good fortune will continue, and that you will remain free from the curse of war.’

‘Hell, we don’t pick fights, Mr Ambassador. We finish ’em.’

It was, in Lady St John’s view, a most glorious cockfight, but it had gone far enough, for the moment. There were three other courses to get through; something had to be kept in reserve.

‘Would you like some more, Your Excellency? Or have you had enough?’

‘More than enough. Thank you, Lady St John.’ He bowed, which allowed him to break eye contact with the American.

‘I don’t know much about English manners, Lady St John, but if it’s not being impolite, I’d love some more,’ the American said, without waiting to be asked. He’d be damned before he followed Shigemitsu. ‘It’s what the workers on my railroad would call “damned fine chow”.’ He paused only momentarily. ‘I guess that’s the Chinese influence, eh?’

And suddenly the table was alight with a multitude of different conversations. Pamela, who had been as transfixed as Emerald at the outpouring of male hormones, was seated between the American and his ambassador. They were both tall and dark, middle-aged, with fine eyes, but there the resemblance finished. Winant was uncombed, uncertain and largely inaudible at such occasions, whereas the other man most evidently was not. And he seemed to own a railway. She placed a hand gently on his sleeve.

‘Forgive me, but I didn’t catch your name.’

‘It’s Averell Harriman.’ He smiled, a little stiffly. He gazed down at her; she knew he was struggling to keep his eyes steady. It was her dress. She’d lost almost all the weight she had gained while pregnant, but a couple of additional inches had clung to her breasts and, in this dress, they showed.

‘I’m Pamela Churchill.’

‘I know you are. I’ve already met your father-in-law. He says we must all become good friends.’

‘I hope you’re going to do everything he tells you.’

Harriman laughed. ‘That’s pretty much my job description. I’ve been put in charge of the Lend-Lease operation. The President has told me to come over here and give you everything you want.’

‘Like Santa Claus.’

‘Something like that.’

‘In which case, I can promise you, we shall become very good friends indeed.’

And suddenly there was laughter around the table, except from Shigemitsu.

Later, he was the first to leave. Lady St John led him to the door.

‘Your Excellency, it’s been such a pleasure having you with us. And particularly for me. May I let you in on a little secret? It’s wonderful to be with guests of—how shall I put this?—of a similar stature. We little people should stick together, don’t you think?’

He gave a stiff bow, and left. He did not think he would ever return.

In reasonably rapid succession, the hallways of Chequers echoed to the sound of bath waters parting, heavy male footsteps, a female scream and the crashing of a tray laden with crockery.

‘Who the hell are you?’ Churchill said, making puddles on the hallway carpet and trying to rearrange his towel with more discretion.

‘Héloise. I am Héloise,’ the young woman responded in a heavy accent, her eyes filled with horror.

‘And what the hell are you?’

‘I am the new maid.’ She was struggling to avert her eyes.

‘New maid. What new bloody maid?’

‘The new maid we agreed on, Mr Churchill.’ It was Sawyers, who had appeared as if on wings in response to the sounds of mayhem.

‘I told you we didn’t need one. Look at the mess she’s made.’

‘Well, if it’s to be a race to see who can ruin rug first, I suspect you’re in wi’ a pretty good chance yerself, zur,’ the valet replied, indicating the sodden carpet. ‘Suppose I’d better do introductions. This is Héloise. Cousin to Mrs Landemare’s husband. From Marseilles,’—his accent and lisp made a mockery of the name—‘before joining us here. And a very dangerous escape it were, too, so cook’s been telling me.’

The girl gave a nervous bob.

‘And this,’ Sawyers added, turning and raising his eyebrow as though in disbelief, ‘is the Prime Minister.’

‘Je suis Churchill,’ the Prime Minister growled in his execrable accent. ‘I don’t like new faces. And I don’t like people who go round dropping trays and making a racket. If you’re going to make a habit of it, you’d better stay out of my way downstairs.’

Héloise promptly burst into tears and fled. Churchill was left feeling very damp and a trifle silly.

‘And tell her I prefer my eggs scrambled,’ he said, stepping round the mess on the floor.

It was the twentieth of March. Pamela’s twenty-first birthday.

She spent it without any form of communication from Randolph.

She sat in the rented rectory that had meant so much to her, yet which now stared back at her like a stranger. Once it had seemed to catch every shaft of sunlight, but now it collected only draughts and dust. She thought of the many nights she had burrowed beneath the blankets, hugging a favourite bear and pretending it was Randy creeping into the bedroom rather than several degrees of frost, but those days were gone. She was twenty-one. Her first day as a legal adult. Old enough to vote. And utterly miserable.

She ate her dinner alone in the kitchen, growing a little drunk as she dismantled one of Randolph’s prize bottles of vintage champagne. It was part of a consignment he’d been given as a wedding present by one of his chums from White’s. As she drank from a glass of the finest crystal, his photograph stared at her in reproach from its ornate silver frame—another present. She was surrounded by luxury in a house where even the mice could no longer afford to eat.

She was by upbringing a straightforward country girl, not simple, but not sophisticated either, and when Randolph had introduced her to a new life she hadn’t at first entirely understood its rules. Only now was she beginning to realize that Randolph didn’t understand them, either. Idiot. He was still staring from his silver frame. Defiantly she raised her glass to him and uttered something very rude.

She spent another night shivering beneath her blankets, banging her head on bloody Macaulay, before she made up her mind. They had a mountain of wedding presents—crystal decanters, a canteen of exquisite cutlery, an antique carriage clock, fine wines, Lalique figurines, modern pearls and pieces of ancient porcelain, every kind of indulgent trinket that had been given to them by their rich friends—or, more accurately, the rich friends of Randolph’s father. She put everything up for auction. Within two weeks they were gone, every last bit and bauble, including her jewellery and his watches. A month later, so was the rectory, rented out for three times the amount they were paying for it. Arrangements were made for the baby, who was provided with a nursery and nanny at Cherkley, the country home of his wealthy godfather, Lord Beaverbrook, which in turn gave Pamela the freedom to ‘do her bit’ and take a job in the Ministry of Supply. It also enabled her to take a top-floor room at the Dorchester Hotel.

Now the Dorchester, at first sight, might have seemed an unconventional choice for a woman trying desperately to save herself from financial delinquency, but it had some surprising advantages. Many of the most powerful people in London had moved into the hotel for the duration, and Pamela knew that while she was there she would never have to pay for another meal. It also happened to be one of the safest locations in London—reinforced with steel and with a deep basement. Above all else, it was close to her father-in-law. Pamela was, after all, a Churchill, and there were benefits to be had from being related to the most powerful man in the land. One of these benefits was the substantial discount that the Dorchester offered her on their standard charges.

As she told her incredulous friends, she was so hard up she couldn’t possibly afford to live anywhere else.

There were many visitors that Easter weekend—not just family but generals, aides, the Australian Prime Minister, the Americans. It was not a season of peace.

The strain had been growing for weeks. Cold winds blew from every corner of the globe and Churchill, as always impatient, interfered in everything. He grew impatient with others, showed anger at delays and was left shouting vainly at the gods who seemed to have turned their back on him.

Every day he would examine the charts that displayed the progress of the convoys as they fought their way across the Atlantic, hurling questions at his Admiralty staff, demanding instant answers, grasping at hope. He followed not only the fate of the convoys but even individual cargoes, insisting that the machine guns, aircraft engines and fourteen million cartridges being carried from America by the City of Calcutta be unloaded on the west coast. ‘Why in blazes do they insist on running the additional risk of taking them round to the east coast?’ he demanded. ‘Are they incompetent, or simply mad?’

Everywhere the news was bad. Bulgaria had joined the Axis, there were fears that Spain would follow. Yugoslavia stood defiant, but it would not be for long. Germany fell upon her and two days of bombing killed more than seventeen thousand civilians in the capital city, Belgrade. Everyone knew that Greece would be next. Churchill ordered British troops to be moved from Egypt to help in the defence of Greece, much to the open displeasure of his generals, but Churchill insisted. Yet even as the troops prepared to move, Rommel began a new advance in North Africa and threw the plans into chaos. The British began to retreat, but they couldn’t even manage that properly. The new trucks and tanks that had been sent to the desert kept breaking down in the sand. Churchill once again lost his temper, demanding to know whether the War Office wanted him to go and fix the bloody machines himself. ‘The Germans move forward and discover our men playing at sandcastles!’ he spat contemptuously. ‘They’ve taken two thousand British prisoners. We’ll just have to find comfort in the fact that they’ve taken three of our bloody generals as well.’

Further east, Britain’s supply problems grew with a pro-Nazi coup in oil-rich Iraq. ‘It is just as happened in the last war,’ Churchill sighed. ‘We liberate them, then they turn on us.’

‘Ungrateful Arab swine,’ one aide said, but Churchill turned on him. ‘Only a fool expects gratitude in the desert!’

Not for one moment did the light of battle leave his eyes, but it seemed to be devouring him, burning him out. At every point on the map there were new wounds. Britain was bleeding to death.

He saw it for himself. On Good Friday he had left for a tour of the West Country in the company of the American Ambassador. They arrived in Bristol not long after the Luftwaffe had left. Churchill had walked through streets that were no longer recognizable, had watched as inhabitants with bewildered faces emerged from their hidey-holes to find their world destroyed, had spent all morning outside without once seeing the sun through the clouds of swirling smoke. The Mayor of Bristol, soot streaked upon his face, had likened his city to ancient Rome. And so it was. Ruins.

In one corner of the city they stumbled across the remnants of a wall that had once been a row of houses. On it someone had scribbled: ‘There Will Always Be An England!’ but the message had been all but obliterated by scorch marks from the flames. From somewhere Winant found a piece of chalk and, kneeling in the dust, carefully restored the message to its original form.

Later that day, the old man returned to Chequers deeply affected, his jaw locked in uncharacteristic silence. He seemed unable to settle. He paced relentlessly, then instructed the Coldstream Guards who were stationed in the grounds of the house to set up a firing range a little way from the house. A few sandbags, a couple of makeshift wooden targets. He wanted to do something violent. Most of the men joined him—not Vic Oliver, he hadn’t been invited—and they stood around in a light drizzle, although none seemed keen to join him as he took aim and emptied the magazine of his pistol, a Colt .45, into the target. A bullet for every fresh catastrophe of the last few days. The Atlantic, the Balkans, the deserts, the West Country. Bullet after bullet smacked home, sending splinters spitting across the lawn, and still he continued firing. A bullet for the pain of his son-in-law, Duncan Sandys, who had just been terribly injured in a car crash. Another for Sarah, who had arrived at Chequers to tell him that her marriage to Vic Oliver was falling apart.

And the very last bullet he saved for those thoughts of failure that had begun to intrude upon him at night. He was a man who throughout his life had taken pride in his ability to sleep soundly and wake refreshed, but now devils pursued him through his dreams as well as his waking hours. A whispering campaign had begun in the darker corners of the House of Commons; mutterings about ‘midnight follies’, ‘cigar stump diplomacy’, ‘too much meddling and too many yes-men’. Things were all going hell-ward. And suddenly his aim failed and the bullet sped wide.

‘Anyone gonna join me?’ he demanded, his voice taut as a bowstring. No one stepped forward. They all knew better than to get within snapping distance of the Black Dog. So he thrust his empty weapon at his detective, Thompson, and began striding back towards the house, his hands deep in the pockets and head bent low. Only Winant seemed willing to fall in step beside him, bending his tall frame to get nearer to the old man’s words, causing his unkempt hair to fall across his face.

‘So tell me, Gil, my Intelligence people suggests the Herrenvolk are lengthening the runways on many of their airfields in Poland. You heard anything about that?’

‘Can’t say I have,’ the American said. It made Churchill feel a little happier. It seemed he was ahead in one game, at least.

‘What the hell do you think they’re up to?’

‘I’ve no idea. Not for our benefit, I guess.’

‘Our’ benefit. Churchill liked that. He was beginning to warm to this diffident, angular American. His shirts were habitually crumpled and his blue overcoat a diplomatic disgrace, but the man had heart.

‘And it’s not for the benefit of bloody Lufthansa, either,’ the old man continued. ‘It can only be for the bombers.’

‘What bombers?’

‘The bombers they will use when they fall upon Russia.’

‘But Russia and Germany have a friendship pact…’

‘So did Cain and Abel.’

‘What do you think it means?’

‘It means the Germans are looking east, in search of bigger game. Perhaps our tiny British islands have become an irrelevance in Hitler’s eyes, a sideshow —perhaps he thinks that Winston Churchill is no longer worth the bother.’

‘You make it sound personal.’

‘Of course it’s bloody personal! He’s leaving us to die from starvation, imprisoned in our own impotence. But there might be salvation in the insult, Gil. If Germany attacked Russia, they would not dare invade these islands until they were done. It gives us time—time which we both must use.’ He stopped abruptly and grabbed the ambassador’s sleeves. ‘Don’t you see? It will change the whole nature of the war. Make it stretch around the world. Surely America must realize that it could never stay out of such a conflagration.’

The blue eyes were staring up at the taller Winant, boiling with emotion, willing the ambassador and all his countrymen to draw alongside. But it was a passion that Winant knew was so often misdirected. For the best part of a year Churchill had been bombarding Roosevelt with messages that overflowed with obsession and excess. In the old man’s eyes, every hour was the moment of destiny, the hour when civilization would collapse unless Roosevelt sent more destroyers, offered more credits, built more planes, declared war. The bombardment had been conducted without respite and it had reached the point where Roosevelt often didn’t respond to Churchill’s telegrams, simply ducked them, left the moment to grow cold. Not every hour could be Churchill’s hour. The American President had his own battles to fight—against the isolationists who didn’t want to touch the war, against the leaders of organized labour who didn’t want to touch it either, not unless they got paid a whole lot more, and against Congress where good will was flowing about as slowly as treacle on a frosty day. So Roosevelt had taken to ignoring Churchill’s incessant words of doom. ‘I close my eyes,’ the President said, ‘and wake up in the morning to discover that, somehow, the world has survived.’

Winant, too, hoped for a brighter outcome. ‘If Hitler attacks Russia, so might the Japs,’ he suggested. ‘Turn north. Into Siberia. Away from your colonies to the south.’

‘No. I fear not. Siberia has no oil, no rubber, no resources. Nothing for the Japanese war machine to feast upon.’

‘You mustn’t always look on the dark side, Winston,’ Winant said in gentle warning. ‘The American people are optimists. It unsettles them if they can see no light in the gloom.’

‘And what if there is no light? Do you simply sit back and pray you will find your way through the darkness? Or do you pick up a box of matches and start a bloody good fire?’

‘And burn your house down in the process?’

‘Perhaps you are right,’ he muttered, unconvinced. ‘But the Japanese Foreign Minister Matsuoka is prowling through the corridors of the Kremlin even as we speak. What the hell’s he up to? Lost his way in the dark, has he?’

‘He’s just come from Berlin. Our intelligence suggests it’s possible he’s in Moscow preparing the ground.’

‘For what?’

‘For a declaration of war.’

‘Against whom?’

‘Why…Russia, I mean.’

‘Then let it be war! War! War!’ he shouted histrionically, to the alarm of the following group. Then he shook his head. ‘But once again your optimistic American intelligence has got it utterly wrong.’

‘How can you be certain?’

‘Because intelligence needs to be dipped in a bucket of common sense before it’s laid on the table. And common sense suggests the Japanese haven’t gone to Moscow with bunches of flowers in their hands in order to declare war, any more than they arrived in China with fixed bayonets for the purpose of setting up a wood-whittling business.’

‘You don’t think much of American Intelligence, then?’

‘They got it half right. There will be war. And not all the optimists in America will be able to stop it,’ the old man growled, before stomping off in the direction of the house.

Sawyers sat with Héloise at the long central table in the kitchen polishing silver, while Mrs Landemare prepared lunch.

‘But I do not understand,’ Héloise protested.

‘Yer too young to understand such things,’ Sawyers responded.

‘Oh, you don’t ’alf talk a lot of tommy-rot at times, Mr Sawyers,’ Mrs Landemare said, peering into a bubbling pot.

‘How so?’

‘The girl needs to know these things, otherwise she’s going to be dropping breakfast trays from here until the gates of Heaven.’

‘Well, she’s your relative…’

‘My hubby’s relative.’

‘Your responsibility, then,’ Sawyers said, reaching for a fresh buffing rag.

Mrs Landemare’s face came up from the pot, her ruddy cheeks and remarkably broad forehead covered in little droplets of steam. Sawyers was opting out. Typical man.

‘It’s war what does it mostly,’ Mrs Landemare began, turning to Héloise, ‘although it goes on just as much when there ain’t any war, I suppose.’ Her awkwardness was stretching almost to the point of contradiction. ‘It’s just that…Well, you haven’t got no mother and father, poor thing, so it’s not surprising this is all a bit new. So, how can I put it?’ She sipped from a ladle, then threw a little more salt in the pot. ‘Great country houses are like little worlds all of their own. The ladies and gentlemen get dropped at the door, and for the time that they’re here the rules of the outside world get put to one side. So Mr C wanders around without a towel at times. Don’t mean nothing by it, it’s just his way. So you make a bit of noise when you get near his bathroom, just so he knows you’re coming.’