Churchill's Hour (17 page)

‘You have no right to judge my mother!'

‘I don't. If I had known her I think I would have loved your mother as much as anyone could. But I love Sarah, too.'

‘No more than I!'

‘Then why punish her, send her away?'

‘How can a father rest, knowing what is going on?'

‘But you don't suggest sending Gil away. You could, you know, with a single word. Get him recalled, just like that.' She snapped her fingers.

‘Because…'

‘Because, Papa, he is a man. Because he is too valuable to you. And because you love the idea of having an important American like him under your thumb. Isn't that it? Do I smell just the faintest whiff of double standards here?'

She had to push the matter to its limit; it was her own funeral they were discussing.

‘That is ridiculous—'

‘Then tell me, Papa. One simple question. What would your mother have done?'

He sat panting for breath as, deep inside him, war was waged.

‘What will you have me be, a bishop or a bloody Borgia? I don't know what to do, Pamela. Does that make you feel better? All I know is that it is a circumstance that will end up breaking my heart. But why, Pamela, why do you set about me so?'

‘Because, Papa,' she whispered, ‘whatever you decide to do with Gil and Sarah, you will have to do with Averell. And with me.'

The husband had been the ghost at all their feasts, and now he was there, made flesh, his hand outstretched in greeting.

‘Mr Harriman.'

‘Please—call me Averell.'

They were standing beneath the awning of Shepheard's Hotel, where Randolph stayed when he was in Cairo. The heat was searing. Every piece of brickwork radiated heat and even the palm trees seemed to wilt. The air was full of flies and dust, and the pavements wriggled with dirty boys. From the road came the noise and stench of complaining donkeys.

Randolph was sweating. Harriman had seen photographs of him at Chequers, but they were
clearly several years old, for they had shown a young face that burned with energy and, yes, even beauty. But the man before him was greying, overweight and with an expression that had become glazed with indulgence. The American reached out, taking the proffered hand warily. He searched Randolph's eyes for any trace of animosity or understanding, but found only a puddle of gin.

‘My father speaks very highly of you, Averell. Says I should take care of you. Be a pleasure. Come inside to the bar; I'd rather be buggered than stand outside any longer in this heat.'

And so they started, the husband and the lover…

Soon they were occupying Randolph's favourite corner in the bar, where the breeze and the gin were at their most cooling. Harriman had been told that the younger Churchill was a lieutenant, but he wore the uniform of a major and carried the air of feudal chieftain. As they sat, the entire Egyptian world seemed to pass by his table, and he greeted them variously with cries of welcome, curses or complete indifference.

The man was not a fool, Harriman quickly came to realize that. But he was the son of perhaps the most famous man in the world, which meant that his life would never be his own. Above all, he was not allowed to go to war. Harriman doubted if the Prime Minister himself had forbidden it, but he didn't need to, the System would take care of that
for him. So while Randolph had trained to be a commando and was as eager as his father had ever been to prove himself, he hadn't seen a single day of combat. Almost all his friends and colleagues had been to war, many of them thrown into the disastrous campaign to save Crete, but while they had fought and some very close to him had already died, Randolph ended up in the corner of this fetid colonial hotel having to do battle with nothing more threatening than flies and his bar bills.

In place of medals, he wore his frustrations. Every fighting man who passed the table had his arm grabbed, every senior officer had his ear bent—and every attractive woman had her body silently propositioned. None of them seemed to mind too much; it was that sort of place and, after all, it was that sort of world. As for the rest of humanity that passed by, they provided an audience for Randolph's tireless stream of complaints about how the war in the Middle East was being run and largely lost.

An officer in the uniform of the Scots Guards approached with a companion on his arm and, spotting Randolph, tried too late to avoid eye contact.

‘Averell, may I introduce Colonel John Marriott?' Randolph said.

‘Churchill,' the senior officer muttered, not struggling to hide the impression of impatience. ‘And Mr Harriman. I've heard of you. Welcome.'

‘Thank you.'

‘Allow me to introduce my wife. Momo, say hello to Mr Harriman.'

An elegant arm with exceptionally long red fingernails was extended. ‘Hello, Mr Harriman.' Her voice was American, her jewellery expensive and her hand lingered just a fraction too long in his.

‘But you'll excuse us,' her husband added. ‘Must be on our way. A war to fight,' he said, casting a caustic eye in the direction of Randolph.

As the couple withdrew, Harriman couldn't help but notice the swing of her hips. He assumed it was intentional. This was not a subtle city. It was a place where the perfume was too heavy, the servants too ingratiating, the streets too loud, the liquor too cheap, with everything corrupted by its imperial idleness and military intrigues. Cairo gave the impression that nothing would last and everything was on offer, a bit like a New York fire sale.

Over lunch in the magnificent dining room, Randolph poured out more of his frustrations about the incompetence with which the war was being run, and Harriman took careful note. After all, what with his father and his friends, Churchill was probably the best-informed man in Cairo. They ate magnificently while Randolph gossiped. And when the bill was presented, they indulged in a squabble about who was to pay. Randolph was an habitual bill-grabber—he would always dine expensively, in company, and reach for the bill, regardless of the
fact that he was broke. Pamela had complained of that. But Harriman had longer arms; his fingers—and his guilt—got there first.

‘Averell,' Randolph declared, conceding defeat, ‘you are a fully paid-up, first-class swine. I think we shall become great friends.'

Harriman blanched. Then the question he had been dreading most, and for which in spite of repeated practice he still had not properly prepared.

‘Tell me, when you were in London, did you see anything of that wife of mine…?'

A thousand miles away, the wind continued to blow achingly cold. Churchill abandoned his stay at Chartwell and decided to return early to London. His car was the last to leave; when he clambered into the back seat, he found Pamela already there. He said not a word, wrapped himself in a car rug and stared out of the window.

Their convoy hurried past the base at Biggin Hill. The airfield was quieter than it had been for many months. The bombing raid that had gutted the House of Commons had proved to be a final spasm of destruction, at least for the moment. But it was only a matter of time before they would be back.

The bell on the police car ahead of them rang out as it passed around the wrong side of a traffic island and pushed its way through red traffic lights.
Churchill enjoyed being driven fast. Usually he thrilled to its sense of speed, of power—his power. But today his mood was sombre and distracted. He remained silent. Pamela assumed it was her fault.

But Churchill could never tolerate silence for long. Eventually he began to mutter, still staring out of the window. ‘That wretched man Hess. Tried to kill himself.'

‘How?'

‘Rushed past the guard and threw himself over the banisters. Know how he feels.'

‘Oh, Papa.'

‘But he's going to be all right. Just a broken leg. Ridiculous fellow. Couldn't even get that right.'

‘Won't there be questions? What will you say about it?'

‘Why, nothing, I suppose. Ever since he arrived people have been demanding that I say something about the man, but in all honesty I have no idea what to say. Sometimes it seems better just to shut up.'

And that was it. He slumped back into his seat. He still had not looked at her. That was why she had stolen into his car, in order to break through the silence that had fallen upon him ever since she had made her confession. His silences were corrosive; she couldn't allow it to continue. That gave her the idea.

‘I think what you have done about Hess is exactly right,' she began again.

‘But I have done nothing. That satisfies no one. So the entire world resorts to rumour and speculation. Silly minds do so hate a vacuum.'

‘Precisely.'

‘What's your point?' he asked, at last turning to look at her.

‘Silence can be a weapon.'

‘What are you talking about?'

‘You remember you once told me that a few years ago Mama went on a sea voyage to India for several months. You knew she had become friendly with one of the other guests on board, a single man. You told me how every day you waited for the postman to arrive in order to ransack the letters, hoping to find one from her. And every day that you had none, you died a little.'

‘I never stopped loving her. I never lost faith,' he insisted, pounding his chest and looking at her in accusation.

‘If only I had married a man like you, Papa,' she said coolly, refusing to match his emotion. He continued to stare at her with suspicion.

‘But you know how it hurt, Papa,' she continued, moving him on. ‘You know the suspicions that passed across your mind.'

‘Like crows tearing at my carcass.'

‘So what must they be thinking in Germany? Whether Hess came with Hitler's blessing or not doesn't really matter—but surely they were
expecting something, even if only an outburst or an accusation. Yet they have nothing. And you remember what that was like.'

‘Every day that went by without hearing from her, I felt the most terrible sense of loss. My suspicions grew, dark thoughts formed in my mind. Waiting for the postman and his letters became an obsession.'

‘Every day since Hess arrived here, Berlin must have been growing more anxious about what has happened—and what is going to happen.'

‘I don't understand. What
is
going to happen?'

‘I've no idea. It seems to me that's up to you. You control what Hess says, and when he says it, Papa. So you can control what Hitler thinks. You are rather like the postman.'

He slumped back into his seat and was staring out of the window again, but lost this time in thought rather than animosity.

‘So what will you do, Papa?' she asked eventually.

‘I'm not yet sure—except to keep that bloody man Hitler guessing. Stick a few pins in his rump. Start by sending a Minister along to see Hess, perhaps, but say nothing about what they discuss. Make it seem like…' He suddenly grew awkward.

‘A lovers' tryst?'

‘That'll do for a start,' he said roughly, but would say no more.

He was still angry and uncomfortable with her,
but she took comfort from the fact that least they were travelling in the same direction once again.

Randolph proved to be an enthusiastic host. For several days he took Harriman on a tour of military installations, making introductions, pointing out weaknesses, proposing remedies, and once the heat of the day had subsided he introduced the American to the lighter side of Cairo's nightlife—first at the Mohamed Ali Club, where the more refined womenfolk waited to find escorts, and later at the Kit Kat Club and Madame Badia's, where the women seemed altogether less fussy. All the while Harriman made careful notes. Then one evening they sailed up the Nile on a dhow, and beneath the stars Randolph began to speak of Pamela. He spoke very fondly. He had no idea. So Harriman got drunk. He couldn't decide whether the other man's ignorance was because Pamela was so skilled at subterfuge, or because he was the sort of Englishman who would always underestimate a woman. In either case, it was uncomfortable territory, so he pursued Randolph into a state of inebriation until he had little recollection of what was being said and none of how he made it back to the British Embassy, where he was staying. He woke up the next morning feeling dreadful. He got up late, very late, which was most unlike him. Breakfast almost became lunch, and as
soon as he had finished it he hurried around to Shepheard's Hotel.

He thought he would have to wake Randolph. They could talk while he was dressing, make up for time already lost that morning. Harriman knocked quietly at the door of Randolph's room, and entered.

Judging by the number of sleeping bags that lay stretched out on the backs of chairs or thrown casually into corners, this was a room accustomed to a fair amount of passing military traffic. Shared room, shared costs. Not the sort of thing Harriman was used to. The fan was spinning noisily, which is perhaps why Randolph hadn't heard the knock at the door, or he simply didn't care, for he was lying naked on his bed. Sitting on top of him was a woman with long, red fingernails. It was Momo Marriott, the wife of the colonel in the Scots Guards. A bead of sweat was trickling down her backbone. She didn't appear to mind the intrusion, or it might have been that she was simply too focused on other things to notice. Randolph, too, seemed unfazed.

‘Sorry, old chap,' he spluttered, gasping for each breath. ‘Bit busy at the moment. See you in the bar in ten?'

Harriman fled. He hadn't felt so discomfited and out of place since—well, since the previous night, when Randolph had begun gushing about Pamela. But by the time he reached the bar his mood had
changed. Throughout his life he had never found comfort in the idea of making another man a cuckold. Now, in Randolph's case, it didn't matter a damn.

Sunday, the twenty-second day of June. It was the shortest night of the year. Four million men stood hidden along a front that stretched from the Black Sea to Finland. They squashed mosquitoes, read the Bible, wrote to loved ones, checked their equipment, ate, drank, prayed, and prepared for death—some other man's death, they hoped.

Fourteen minutes past three in the morning. A lightness in the eastern sky. But still Russia slept.

A minute later, they began to move, backed by three and a half thousand tanks, seven thousand field guns and more than two thousand aircraft. They swarmed from their hiding places in the birch groves and fir forests and began to cross the rivers, the bridges and the crude wooden barriers that marked the frontier. The German invasion of Russia had begun.

It was to result in the greatest slaughter in the history of the human race.

Churchill had taken to his bed the previous evening in an unsettled mood, like a salmon sensing a changing tide. He had woken in the middle of the night and sat bolt upright, waiting, and that was how they had found him when they came to give him the news.

‘The first act is over, now the second begins,' he had whispered. ‘The curtain rises, the scenery has changed, the greatest story of our lifetime moves on.'

So intense had been his excitement that morning that he had cut himself while shaving.

‘Here, better let me do it,' Sawyers had remarked.

‘I can manage,' the old man snapped, impatient to get on with the day.

‘You're dripping blood on me floor.'

‘But don't you see, I was right, Sawyers. I was right!'

‘About what, zur?' the valet asked calmly, sitting him down and taking the razor that was being waved like a fly swat.

‘About those wretched runways in Poland. They were extending them. For bombers. And that's why their bombers have deserted London. Flown east.'

The words came more fitfully as Sawyers stretched his neck to scrape patiently at the lather beneath his chin.

‘I had an inescapable instinct, Sawyers. That it would
be today. Sunday. He always invades on a Sunday.'

‘Catch everyone on his knees, like.'

‘Hah! He won't catch that devil-worshipper Stalin on his knees. But I hope to God he doesn't catch him asleep in bed, either.'

But he probably would. Churchill had been sending the Russian leader warnings for weeks, but the Great Commissar had turned a deaf ear to them all. He would neither forgive nor forget that it was Churchill who had been the foremost abuser of all things Soviet, who had tried to strangle the Bolshevik Revolution at birth, who had on more than one occasion tried to bury Russia in arms and violent abuse. Stalin would never trust the word of Churchill, but he was about to get plenty more of them to consider.

That evening, Churchill broadcast to the world from his desk in the Hawtrey Room. He had spent the day in a state of growing agitation, working and reworking in his mind what he would say. He called what was taking place in Russia ‘a climacteric', and he hurled the English language into the fray.

He described Hitler as ‘a monster of wickedness'. He said he had ‘an insatiable lust for blood and plunder'. He accused him of planning ‘slaughter, pillage and devastation'. Then he called him a ‘bloodthirsty guttersnipe'. And that was simply by way of introduction.

Not content with having all Europe under his heel or else terrorized into various forms of abject submission, he must now carry his work of butchery and desolation among the vast multitudes of Russia and of Asia. The terrible military machine which we and the rest of the civilized world so foolishly, so supinely, so insensately allowed the Nazi gangsters to build up year by year from almost nothing—this machine cannot stand idle, lest it rust or fall to pieces. It must be in continual motion, grinding up human lives and trampling down the homes and the rights of hundreds of millions of men!

After he had been shaved that morning, he had begun to burst with excitement once more. ‘Don't you see, Sawyers? In a single night, everything has changed,' he had said, furiously wiping steam from the mirror. ‘Yesterday, we were alone. Solitary warriors. Yet this morning we stand alongside Stalin and the multitudes of Russia.'

‘You—and Stalin?' Sawyers had enquired, struggling to hide his incredulity. ‘You mean “that devilworshipping Stalin”? The same one?'

‘You understand nothing!' Churchill had barked, throwing cologne around himself. ‘If Hitler invaded Hell I think I could find it in myself to make a favourable reference to the Devil.'

But his valet understood things well enough.
Sawyers was right. As the day wore on Churchill had realized that to persuade anyone that there was now common cause with the birthplace of Bolshevism would require a somersault of such prodigious proportions that it would leave many breathless with mirth. It would require him to turn away from a course he had followed with monastic fervour for almost half his life. He would need cover, and the only cover he knew was words. A hurricane of them.

No one has been a more consistent opponent of Communism than I have for the last twenty-five years. I will unsay no word that I have spoken about it. But all this fades away before the spectacle which is now unfolding. The past, with its crimes, its follies and its tragedies, flashes away. I see the Russian soldiers standing on the threshold of their native land, guarding the fields which their fathers have tilled from time immemorial. I see them guarding their homes where mothers and wives pray—ah yes, for there are times when all pray—for the safety of their loved ones, the return of the breadwinner, of their champion, of their protector.

He loved the English language, loved it almost too much. There were times when he would drive it like a gun horse until it all but dropped. As he spoke he beat time with his hand, as though he were driving the horse to the limits of its endurance.

I see the ten thousand villages of Russia, where the means of existence is wrung so hardly from the soil, but where there are still primordial human joys, where maidens laugh and children play. I see advancing upon all this in hideous onslaught the Nazi war machine, with its clanking, heel-clicking, dandified Prussian officers, its crafty expert agents fresh from the cowing and tying down of a dozen countries. I see also the dull, drilled, docile, brutish masses of the Hun soldiery plodding on like a swarm of crawling locusts.

That, at least, was something he and Stalin might agree upon.

We have but one aim and one single, irrevocable purpose. We are resolved to destroy Hitler and every vestige of the Nazi regime. From this nothing will turn us. Nothing!

His voice rose until it was pounding with emotion.

We will never parley. We will never negotiate with Hitler or any of his gang. We shall fight him by land, we shall fight him by sea, we shall fight him in the air, until, with God's help, we have rid the earth of his shadow and liberated its peoples from his yoke!

His mouth had gone dry; he sipped his whisky, ready for the climax—the Pauline conversion, the climb-down, the turn-around, or whatever others might call it. But it had to be done.

Any man or state who fights on against Nazidom will have our aid. Any man or State who marches with Hitler is our foe. It follows, therefore, that we shall give whatever help we can to Russia and the Russian people. We shall appeal to all our friends and allies in every part of the world to take the same course and pursue it, as we shall, faithfully and steadfastly—to the end!

The world had changed. It was spinning them all around, and by the time Churchill made his way upstairs to bed that evening, he was exhausted. It had been a gruelling rite of passage.

Sawyers helped him off with his jacket. ‘Strange old world. Who'd've thought it? Old Uncle Joe Stalin our ally.'

‘Our ally—certainly. But our friend?' The old man shook his head. ‘They are barbarians. Not even the slenderest of threads connects Communism to any form of civilization. Which is why the battle that is about to take place upon the soil of Russia will be as terrible as any fought in history. Whoever wins it will dominate Europe from the steppes to the distant sea.' His tone grew darker. ‘They will
dominate these islands, too—unless, somehow, America becomes part of it.'

He fell back on the bed as Sawyers began to untie his shoes. He reached for the whisky on his bedside table. Alongside the glass stood a framed photograph of his family, taken the previous Christmas. Sarah, Vic Oliver, Randolph, Pamela, all smiling…

‘Everything in my life comes back to bloody Americans,' he sighed, as his head hit the pillow.

The weather had changed. Everything had changed.

The gales of the endless spring had vanished and summer had at last arrived, determined to make up for lost time. The sun seemed to drag slowly across the sky and, deep inside their blacked-out and shuttered buildings, the British stifled.

And the Russians suffered. They were being driven back on all fronts. Within nine hours of the start of the invasion, the Luftwaffe had destroyed one thousand two hundred Soviet planes. Within five days the Wehrmacht had advanced halfway towards Leningrad. Within three weeks the Red Army had lost two million men.
Rassenkampf
—race war—had taken on a new meaning. The doors of village houses were opened with hand grenades, children were questioned with bayonets, young women were reduced to a level lower than beasts.

The brutality was far from one-sided. As the Red
Army fell back, they slaughtered all political prisoners, and wasted the lives of their own soldiers on a prodigious scale. Yet still the Germans kept coming.

And in Paris, in Prague, in Poland, too, Hitler's men were beginning to round up Jews. Thousands of them.

Churchill summoned his military chiefs and advisers to the Map Room in the Annexe. They found him staring at the huge map of Eastern Europe. A front had been marked on it that seemed to stretch for ever.

‘It takes the breath away,' Churchill said, his words tinged with awe.

‘The Wehrmacht don't seem to have lost much breath,' one of his Chiefs of Staff observed drily. ‘They haven't stopped for days.'

‘They must, eventually. But where? When?'

For a while, no one spoke as they contemplated one of the most extraordinary military adventures of all time. Then, slowly, it came.

‘A few weeks, Prime Minister. I can't see how the Russians can sustain things longer than that. Losing too many men, too much territory. A few weeks, that's all. Then they're out of this war.'

‘I agree, Prime Minister. They'll do just what they did in the last war and sue for peace. Couple of months at most.'

‘Stalin's wretched purges have sliced through any chance they had of putting up effective resistance,'
a third joined in. He pointed at the front. ‘Look—Leningrad, Smolensk, Kiev, the Crimea—even Moscow's under threat.'

‘Two months,' Churchill muttered. ‘Anyone here think they can hold out for longer than two months?'

No one did.

‘Then, by September, by the time the leaves begin to turn, Russia will be under their heel and they will fall once again upon us.'

Please, God, not again. Not another winter under the hammer, waiting for the invasion barges and the bombers to come back. They couldn't take that again…

The atmosphere grew oppressive. Even when the room had been empty the ventilation system had struggled to cope with the sultry weather, but beneath the crush of bodies in the Map Room it failed completely. The air seemed thick enough to chew.

Yet suddenly Churchill had snapped back to life. ‘We must act! There is no time to lose!' he said. ‘We can take advantage of them. While their attentions are elsewhere. Let's kick a few German rumps. Make hell while the sun shines!'

The Chiefs of Staff began exchanging anxious glances. ‘What, precisely, do you have in mind, Prime Minister?'

‘A large raid across the Channel,' Churchill began,
the blood rushing once more. ‘Twenty-five—thirty thousand men. Use the commandos, some of the Canadians, too. A target in occupied France that'll set the French spirit ablaze once more.' He was back at the maps. ‘One of the ports. Dieppe, perhaps. And let us stay there a while,' he insisted, stabbing his finger at the French coastline.

‘Too soon, I fear, Prime Minister. Too much chance that we'll end up in the same fix as we did at Dunkirk.'

‘But it will split their attentions, don't you see? The Hun won't know whether to turn east or west. It gives us profound tactical advantages.'

His words were met with silence.

‘Then Norway,' he suggested irritably, turning to another map. ‘We know enough about the bloody territory.'

‘Norway
again
, Prime Minister?'

‘A bridgehead in the north that will enable us to join hands with the Russians. Show that our alliance isn't simply one of minds but of men and of muscle. It would be a hugely symbolic gesture.'

‘And a highly risky one, if you don't mind me saying so, Prime Minister. We'll examine it, of course, but after the recent problems in Greece and Crete we're desperately short of air cover. And we all remember what happened last time.'

It was a cruel blow but, in the eyes of the Chiefs of Staff, entirely necessary. It was Churchill who had
pushed the British Army into Norway without adequate air cover in 1940. It had been a disaster. Another of Winston's follies.

‘Then what the hell do you propose to do?' Churchill shouted, glaring around at them. ‘Or are we to do absolutely bloody nothing and wait until next week before we do it?' His chest was heaving with frustration.

‘I think what we should do is examine everything you've proposed, Prime Minister,' one said. ‘Test them. Come back with a reasoned proposal.'