Churchill's Hour (32 page)

Churchill had gambled with the lives of these British sailors. It was what leaders were required to do in war. And he had lost. The British Navy's effective presence in the Indian and Pacific oceans had been wiped out even as the US presence lay crippled. Within four days, Japan had achieved mastery of all the seas in Asia.

It was a huge personal tragedy for Churchill. He had known the men on board the
Prince of Wales
, they had been his sailing companions, some were his friends. Against the advice of his admirals, he had sent them to their deaths. He said to his staff that never had he received such a direct shock.

Yet hand in hand with the loss of these two ships,
Churchill had also found victory. Japan was at war with America, prompted in part by the awesome prospect of a great Allied fleet of which these two ships would have been part. Perhaps his gamble hadn't failed, after all.

And there was other news to help bring light to the dark watches of that night. The Russians had taken advantage of the winter conditions and had launched counter-attacks along the entire Eastern Front. German reconnaissance troops had reached a point only twelve miles from the Kremlin, the panzers only a few miles behind, but they were now being pushed back. The temperature had dropped to minus thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit. It was to be a desperately cold Christmas for Hitler's men.

The next day was to bring events that were still more momentous.

Hitler spoke at the Reichstag in Berlin. Ever since the attack on Pearl Harbor there had been furious speculation around the world as to what he might say. The speech had been postponed more than once and repeatedly rethought and redrafted by the Fuehrer himself, so when he finally arrived during the afternoon in the Reichstag building, it was clear he would have something new to announce.

It proved to be an eighty-eight-minute oratorical bombardment of the sort the world remembered from the days of the rallies at Nuremberg—the flags, the symbols, the theatrical arm gestures, the rising
cadences, the broad Austrian accent, the rerouting of history along his own extraordinary ideological channels. He attacked all of his opponents, but above all he attacked Roosevelt. Germany had never had any designs on America, the Fuehrer thundered, not in all its history, so why did their President so viciously oppose the German people? It was simple. He was mentally unsound. And surrounded by Jews.

The length of the attack on Roosevelt was so great that it was well past the hour before Hitler came to his main point of his speech. Yet as the world waited, listening on their radios, his words were lost, drowned out as his audience of deputies rose to its feet and cheered wildly.

But some already knew. About two hours earlier, the German Chargé d'Affaires in Washington had walked into the US State Department to present them with a note. It accused the United States of flagrant violations of its neutrality, of provocations, of systematic attacks, of open acts of aggression on a scale so widespread that in effect America had created a virtual state of war.

As a result, the note declared, Germany considered herself to be at war with the United States.

In London, it was Winant who heard first. Even as Hitler was getting to his feet, he received a cable from Washington.

War.

He was on the point of telephoning Downing Street when he was overcome by a sudden impulse to tell Churchill in person. It was an extraordinary moment of history and he wanted to share its excitement and awe with one of the greatest men alive. He wanted to see the other man's face, wanted to have that memory with him for the rest of his life. He called for his car.

He arrived at Downing Street a few minutes later in a state of considerable anticipation. He dashed across the threshold and was almost running down the long corridor that led to the Cabinet Room. He could contain himself no longer: he burst in, without formality or knocking.

He found Churchill alone, signing letters.

‘Winston—it's war!' he cried, still clutching the doorknob. ‘Hitler's declared war on the United States.'

The words seem to take a long time before they connected with Churchill. The old man's chest heaved once, then he carefully screwed the cap back on his pen and closed his blotter. When he spoke, his tone was almost dull. ‘Even Hitler couldn't put up with your Government's dilly-dallying, Gil. Instead of waiting for you to move he decided to jump himself.'

Winant was taken aback. He had expected more. He had brought with him such a priceless gift, and he'd expected some show of enthusiasm if not
gratitude. It was almost as if the old man knew…

‘You seem remarkably untouched by it all.'

‘Far from it, Gil. I am so overwhelmed with emotion that I feel my heart will burst.'

Yet the old man seemed so remarkably unsurprised. As the adrenalin and excitement drained from his body, Winant was beginning to realize that there were many things about this new situation that he didn't understand.

‘Why, Winston? Why did Hitler declare war? Britain, the Soviet Union, now the United States—the three greatest opponents on earth. He didn't need to do it. So why?'

‘Because of Japan, perhaps? They've been signing pacts and treaties declaring their undying devotion to each other.'

‘No,' Winant responded. ‘He didn't declare war on the United States simply because of some treaty. They are meaningless to him, nothing more than empty boxes to put in the shop window. He didn't go to war because of a scrap of paper.'

‘But he had a speech to make. What else was he to say?'

‘You surely don't think he declared war simply to fill a speech.'

‘He is an orator, Gil, consider that. He is driven by a desire to move people—not like me, with mere phrases, but with raw, animal passion and grand gestures.'

‘Even so, you don't make war simply to fill a few headlines.'

‘Several centuries ago, Shakespeare wrote about rulers who seek to busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels.'

‘I reckon waging war on America counts as a bit more than just some foreign quarrel, Winston.'

‘Remember, Gil, he is a man almost eaten up by his vanity. He must have suspected that war with America would come eventually, so why wait and allow you the moral authority of declaring it? Better to grab the moment for himself than give you the chance to prick his pride.'

‘Then why this moment? There was no sign that we were about to declare war on him. Not just before Christmas.'

‘You must understand that man's overwhelming need to fill the moment. The winter is upon him and the news from the Russian front begins to turn against him. He's too proud, too conceited to send his people off for Christmas with nothing to feed upon but Japanese fish soup.'

‘You make it sound as if you know him.'

‘Oh, I believe I do. We British have been at war with him for more than two years, his guns lie twenty miles from our shore, his aircraft fill our skies. Of course I have studied him. It pays to know your enemies, as well as your friends.'

Yet Winant continued to be troubled. He paced
around the long Cabinet table, his tall back stooped, his untidy hair falling into his eyes. He had always seen this room as a source of power and splendour, yet for the first time he began to see how shabby it had become. There was blast-tape on the windows and the curtains were full of grey dust. Outside the skies were low, heavy with winter rain, and the buildings all around still bore the scars of their battering from the bombs. Churchill spoke of the enemy's pride but the British, too, had their pride, yet in the last couple of years they had taken a terrible kicking. And Winant still bore the marks of Churchill's own boot, which had been applied to him only a few weeks earlier at Chequers when the old man had raged about America's ineptitude and immorality. The ambassador was beginning to remember other things, too. It caused unruly thoughts to run across his mind.

‘Winston, will you allow me to impose upon our friendship?'

‘Always.'

‘Did you suspect? Did you know?'

‘About what, pray?'

‘That Hitler was about to declare war? Even that the Japanese would hit Pearl Harbor?'

‘Why on earth do you ask such questions?'

‘It's because…' Winant began to beat his hands in frustration. ‘Tojo and Hitler between them have handed you everything you wanted, everything you
desired, everything you were committed to achieving. Bully for Britain—but, hell, the United States didn't want this, and I doubt whether in their hearts even Japan and Germany wanted this. They'd have been more than happy setting about poor little England all on its own. And yet…'

‘What are you suggesting?'

‘I'm not sure, but…' He stretched past his doubts to grab at something solid. ‘If you could have, I think you would have guided this.'

Churchill paused for some while before replying. He studied Winant, who was bent double and in such earnestness that he seemed in physical pain.

‘How could that possibly be?' the Englishman replied softly.

‘Through intelligence, perhaps, or manipulation, all the murky ways of war in which I guess you have more personal experience than any man in the world. You know, the other day when news came through about Pearl you seemed shocked—not so much that it had happened, but more about its timing. It was almost as if you were waiting for it.'

‘Gil, why are you persisting with such extraordinary conjectures?'

‘Partly because every question I've asked you've deflected with another question. And because I remember what you said at Chequers that night. You said that we would enter the war, and that we would have no choice in the matter.'

Silently Churchill chastised himself. It had been a rage too far.

‘And you told me, Winston—I remember your words precisely; they made such a deep impression—that if we did not decide for war, we would not be permitted to stand aside. You said that others would make the decision for us.' He paused. ‘So did you?'

‘As a diplomat, Gil, you should know better,' Churchill said dismissively.

‘Then let me ask as an American,' Winant said more heatedly. ‘We lost two thousand men at Pearl. I believe that gives me the right. So did you know?'

‘Two thousand men?' Churchill washed the words round his mouth like wine. He seemed to find in it some deep distaste, for his expression grew stern and his voice filled with anger. ‘Two thousand men?' His hand slapped down upon the Cabinet table. ‘Britain lost as many when the
Hood
was sunk, the Germans as many when the
Bismarck
disappeared, and the French as many when we blew their fleet to pieces at Mers-el-Kébir. Why, we lost nearly a thousand yesterday alone on the
Prince of Wales
and the
Repulse.
What makes your men of any greater value than those who have gone before? This is your war as much as it is ours, it is a battle for the survival of democracy and human decency. If you have come to it late, then it is a cause for a little shame as well as great sorrow. But not recrimination.' Churchill's
lips were quivering with emotion. ‘Look out through those windows, Gil. You see a city brought to the point of ruination by the forces of terror—a terror that Americans have for so long refused to recognize. In one single night, and for so many nights, we have lost as many as you have in the entire course of this long war. Not military men like those at Pearl Harbor but innocent civilians, mere women and children, babes in arms who bore not a trace of guilt for this conflict yet who still lie out there undiscovered beneath the rubble. So if the deaths of two thousand men at Pearl Harbor gives you the right as an American to question my actions, then how much greater is my right to question yours?'

‘That is still not an answer, Winston,' the ambassador responded doggedly.

‘Gil, believe me, I do not intend to decry your dead, but freedom has a fearful appetite and over the centuries she has required terrible sacrifice. Your men did not die in vain. America is now part of the greatest moral crusade since the night Beelzebub was cast out of Heaven, and while I weep for their loss, I welcome your dead into the place of honour that is reserved for heroes.'

Winant's dark eyes continued to stare at him steadily from across the table. His persistence was beginning to make Churchill feel greatly discomfited.

‘Pray, don't pursue this illusion of yours, Gil. What would you have me say? It was a blessing that Japan
attacked the United States. It is an undisputed triumph that Hitler has turned upon you and thus brought America wholeheartedly into the war. I tell you in all sincerity that greater good fortune has rarely fallen upon the British Empire, and history will record this as the moment in which we were saved. But how could I have done anything to manipulate or manufacture such events? Turning on America would be like…'—he reached for a comparison—‘like turning on my own son.'

That was a mistake. Winant would know about Pamela and Harriman—Sarah would have told him. There wasn't much point in resting his case on morality.

‘Gil, you search for the truth, but sometimes in times of war there is a greater need
not
to know. A need to turn a blind eye. Not simply for military commanders and political leaders, but for diplomats, too. Why, even for husbands and wives…'

‘Oh, Winston—'

‘And for fathers.'

Winant fell silent.

‘Sometimes, Gil, we have to turn a blind eye in order to see through the chaos that surrounds us. Vision isn't about seeing everything, but seeing the important things, and what is right. If that is what I am charged with, I shall sleep easily. We can let history decide upon the details of who knew or did whatever it is that has been done.'

‘A history written by the victors, Winston.'

‘Then let us be content that, as from this day, it will be written in English.'

The bath water was exactly the right temperature.