Authors: William Nicholson
‘You’re the chap who tells me the things I don’t want to hear,’ he said to Rupert. ‘And that’s just what I want to hear.’
So Rupert came and went among the officers of the High Command, seeing without being seen, knowing without being known. The price he paid was loneliness, but this was nothing new. As a child he had once asked for a bed with curtains round it. He thought that if he drew the curtains he could protect himself from the eyes of the unkind world.
Why else do I like walking in the rain?
*
The meeting took place in the main conference room of the King’s Pavilion, a pillared monstrosity built in the early nineteenth century to house the Governor of Ceylon. The conference room was designed for imperial receptions, with tall windows that looked down the hillside to the lake. The staff sat on either side of a long baize-covered table, with Mountbatten at the head. Boy Browning, Army Chief of Staff, reported on the current status of Operation Zipper, the planned amphibious invasion of the Malay peninsula.
‘As you know, sir, the light-fleet carriers have been transferred to the Pacific fleet, at Fraser’s insistence.’
‘Damn Fraser!’ exclaimed Mountbatten. ‘He doesn’t need them.’
‘We’ve also lost over thirty thousand men with the reduction in service time that came in on June the eighth.’
‘Can you believe it?’ said Mountbatten. ‘It’s bare-faced electioneering! Grigg thinks the returning troops will all vote Tory. He’s got a nasty surprise coming.’
The discussion became technical, revolving round troop numbers and favourable dates for an assault on Singapore.
‘We’ve already delayed Zipper twice. Mid-August is our last chance.’
As the meeting wound up, Mountbatten rose to his feet. He smiled at his staff, projecting his usual air of invincible self-confidence.
‘I leave for Germany this afternoon. My message to Churchill
is simple. If we fail to reconquer at least one colony before the end of the war, our prestige in the Far East will be lost for ever.’
Rupert followed Mountbatten at his request out onto the terrace. The rain had stopped. Kandy shimmered in bright sunlight.
‘Mark my card, Rupert.’
‘Nobody at Potsdam will care a rap about Operation Zipper, sir.’ Rupert knew that Mountbatten was inclined to listen most attentively when shocked. ‘They’ll talk a lot about the defeat of Japan, but everyone knows that’s just a matter of time. Anyway, that’s an American show. The real hot potato is containing Stalin. The Americans want to get the Russians into the war on Japan, but at the same time they don’t want them to take any more of Europe than they’ve already got. That’s where the dealing will get tough.’
‘They don’t care about the Fourteenth Army in Burma?’
‘No, sir. They don’t even know where Burma is.’
‘How do you know this?’
‘I don’t. All I do is put myself in Truman’s place and ask myself how the world looks to him. Hitler’s gone. Japan’s on its knees. Stalin’s all he cares about. He’ll be looking ahead, to the next war.’
‘The next war! God help us!’
‘Your best bet is to hitch Burma and Malaya and Singapore to the wagon. Tell the Americans that if they don’t watch out, the whole of South East Asia will turn into Soviet satellite states. Then India will follow. They’ll pay attention to that.’
Mountbatten nodded as he listened. None of this was new to him, but Rupert had a knack of putting matters in a way that he could recall later.
They left the terrace and re-entered the conference room.
‘Did you see the March of Time film,
Back Door to Tokyo
? Never even mentioned me. You’d think Joe Stillwell and the Americans were the only ones fighting out here. Extraordinary!
And I’m Stillwell’s superior officer! Or was, until I got rid of him.’
As they passed through the hallway to the main doors, Joyce Wedderburn was waiting for Mountbatten with a copy of his schedule.
‘What do you think will happen in the election?’ Mountbatten said.
‘Labour’s going to win,’ said Rupert.
‘Peter Murphy says so too. Poor Winston. He has no idea.’
Rupert shared a car back to Divisional HQ with Joyce.
‘Is he still going on about how he wasn’t in that news film?’ Joyce said.
‘Yes,’ said Rupert.
‘He’s terrifically miffed about it, poor dear.’
Joyce affected a motherly style with Mountbatten, despite being, at twenty-six, almost half his age. Rupert and Joyce shared the same protective instinct towards Mountbatten, partly prompted by witnessing his treatment at the hands of Edwina, his wealthy and strong-minded wife.
‘Why’s he going to Potsdam?’ said Rupert. ‘He’ll be a small fish there, and he won’t like it.’
‘The PM wants him.’
The car delivered them back to the Botanical Gardens. They walked together from the gates to the Grand Circle, where the main Divisional HQ buildings stood.
‘Is Edwina still seeing that chap of hers?’ asked Rupert.
‘When she gets time,’ said Joyce. ‘Which isn’t often.’
‘Dickie is extraordinary.’
‘What no one understands about him,’ said Joyce, ‘is that he’s shy with women. He really doesn’t think he’s much of a success in that department.’
‘Oh, well,’ said Rupert. ‘None of us think we are. Not really.’
‘But it’s so silly,’ said Joyce. ‘It’s not hard. All you have to do
is pay us a little bit of attention. We don’t expect it to be like in the pictures.’
Rupert wondered if this was meant for him. Joyce’s fiancé had gone down with his ship in ’43. She wasn’t exactly a looker, but then, nor was he. She was trim and brisk and entirely without personal vanity. She would make an excellent life companion.
But I don’t want a life companion. I want a lover. I want an end to loneliness.
A childish dream, of course. It was like wanting not to grow old, or not to die. Rupert was now settled in the self-protective belief that all people are by their nature alone. To know me truly, he liked to say, wearing his philosopher’s hat, you would have to be me. Each of us is an undiscovered universe, lost in the darkness and silence of space.
‘What about you, Joyce?’
‘Oh, I expect someone’ll turn up some day,’ said Joyce. ‘Someone who keeps his underwear clean and doesn’t smoke in bed.’
‘High standards,’ said Rupert.
He came to a stop before a talipot palm tree.
‘You know what that is?’ he said.
‘A palm tree,’ said Joyce.
‘It’s called a talipot. You know why it’s special?’
Joyce examined the big raggedy palm with its immense broad leaves.
‘Tell me,’ she said.
‘They only flower once in their lives. They can live for up to forty years without flowering. But when they do flower, it’s spectacular. The talipot produces the largest cluster of blooms of any plant in the world.’
‘Really?’ She looked from Rupert to the palm tree and back. ‘I bet you’re just making it up.’
‘No. It’s true.’
‘Well, I’m not waiting forty years, I can tell you.’
As she said this she shot Rupert a comical look that entirely disarmed him. She gets it, he thought. Not that his meaning had been obscure. But Rupert was so unaccustomed to being the object of attention that he was caught unawares, as if she had come upon him half undressed.
He realised he was blushing.
‘Oh, Rupert,’ she said. ‘You are sweet.’
They walked on towards the main hut.
‘It’ll be quiet while Dickie’s away,’ Rupert said.
‘I shan’t complain.’
‘How about a Chinese one of these evenings?’
He heard himself utter these words in some amazement. They came out unpremeditated, almost not of his own volition.
‘I’d love that, Rupert,’ said Joyce.
‘Saturday?’
‘It just so happens I’m free Saturday evening.’
Another of those comical looks, and she headed off into the hut. Rupert continued towards his own quarters, now in a state of considerable confusion. He felt as if he had stumbled upon some renegade part of himself that was not subject to his authority. He had, it seemed, made a date with Joyce Wedder-burn. This generated certain expectations; hopes, even. And hopes could be dashed. Better to expect nothing. Just a friendly meal in a Chinese restaurant in old Kandy. Two bored army colleagues passing the time. What could be more natural than that?
A single man and a single woman eating alone together. What could be more thrilling, more terrifying, more potentially life-changing than that?
Admiral Mountbatten duly arrived in Babelsberg, and was assigned a room at 23 Ringstrasse, where Churchill was lodged. At the first opportunity he met General George Marshall and the US chiefs of staff, to begin preparing a joint report on the final stages of the war in the Far East. Marshall told Mountbatten that Stalin had committed the Soviet Union to war against Japan, but that no announcement would be made until later in August.
‘It would be good if we could finish the job ourselves first, don’t you think?’ he said to Mountbatten.
‘Oh, we can finish it all right,’ said Mountbatten. ‘All we need is the political will. I’ve got Slim and his army doing wonders in Burma, and no back-up of any kind whatsoever.’
The next courier to arrive from New Mexico informed the president that there would be a ‘gadget’ ready for use on or after August 2. This was only a matter of days away. Henry Stimson was authorised to brief Mountbatten about the atom bomb, swearing him to secrecy.
Mountbatten was thunderstruck.
‘One bomb can destroy an entire city!’
‘It’s the wrath of God. It’s like nothing you’ve ever dreamed of before.’
‘My God!’
Mountbatten felt flattered to be one of the few let in on the secret, but he couldn’t help seeing it in terms of his own role in South East Asia Command.
‘So what happens to Operation Zipper?’
‘What’s Operation Zipper?’
‘The invasion of the Malayan peninsula. The recapture of Singapore.’
‘Oh, we won’t be needing any of that.’
Mountbatten then had a private meeting with Churchill.
‘Are they really going to drop this new bomb?’ he asked him.
‘I bloody well hope so,’ said Churchill. ‘It’s the only thing that’ll stop Stalin.’
‘And the Japs.’
Churchill made a dismissive gesture with one hand.
‘The Japanese war will be over within the week.’
‘Right,’ said Mountbatten, trying to look more pleased than he felt. ‘So what happens to my outfit in Kandy?’
‘Everyone goes home.’ Then seeing the look on Mountbatten’s face, Churchill added, ‘Don’t worry, Dickie. We’ll find something for you to do.’
‘Thank you, Prime Minister.’
‘What do you reckon to the election? Could be a close-run thing, they tell me.’
‘You’ve led us through the war, Winston. You’ve won the nation’s everlasting gratitude.’
‘Let’s hope they bloody well show it.’
Mountbatten sent a telegram to Boy Browning in Kandy, instructing him to prepare for an imminent Japanese surrender. He was unable to give his reasons.
*
The cable was met with bewilderment in Kandy.
‘What on earth does he mean?’ exclaimed Boy Browning. ‘Is
he cancelling Zipper? Rupert, you’re in on all the secret plans. What the hell’s going on?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Rupert, equally puzzled. ‘Maybe it means the Soviets are coming in against Japan.’
‘All the more bloody important that we get boots on the ground in Malaya first. Does he want the whole of South East Asia to go red?’
Pending further orders, there was nothing to be done but put all plans on hold. This, combined with the absence of the commander-in-Chief and the persistence of the monsoon rains, cast a spell over Divisional Headquarters. The enormous staff that Mountbatten had gathered together, over seven thousand, counting all ranks, settled down to grumble and drink and wait.
Rupert, whose job was forward planning, now understood that the war would soon be over. He was in need of some forward planning of his own. In the gaps between the downpours he walked the avenues of the Botanical Gardens, breathing in the rich scent of the soaked earth, and finding strength in the luxurious growth of the plants.
In the three days since he had made his dinner date with Joyce, neither of them had referred to it again; but Rupert had thought of little else. He was both ashamed and excited by how much of his time was now given over to thoughts of Joyce. Absurdly, she even looked different now. She had become more attractive. He had discovered what finely formed hands she had, and how her face in profile, with her high cheekbones and slightly curved nose, was characterful, even beautiful. Most of all there was that mischievous look in her eyes, which seemed to collude with him – but about what? All he could say for certain was that they were behaving as if they shared knowledge of each other that no one else possessed. What knowledge? He knew next to nothing about her.
But of course the secret was not hard to find. By accepting
the dinner date for Saturday evening they had both taken the great risk of admitting an interest in the other, and this had changed everything. A new door had opened. Beyond it stretched a new road to what could be a new life. However many times he told himself they had not even begun any kind of relationship, he couldn’t stop himself from gazing through that door, and down that road, to the very end.
At the end was married life. Joyce, his wife, sharing a home with him. Joyce the mother of his children. This prospect filled him with joy and wonder. This was not because he was in love with Joyce: he hadn’t yet had the chance to know enough of her for that. It was because he had always pictured his life as a solitary one. This new vision of companionship was almost unbearably sweet.
And why not? There was many a marriage built on friendship.
He sighed a little to himself, as the warm wind rustled the leaves of the palm trees. Not exactly the thoughts of a lover. And yet there was passion enough in him, waiting for its cue to come on stage. Waiting, as it were, for permission.
He had never in all his twenty-eight years made a romantic approach to a girl. No girl he had ever known had given him reason to think such an approach would be welcome. He had a deep horror of what he called ‘making an ass of myself’, which meant exposing himself to rejection. Like the mirrors over which his gaze slid unseeingly, he did all in his power to protect himself from meeting his own unloved image in the eyes of others.