Gifts of War (44 page)

I looked at him.

“The cabinet has a Reconstruction Committee, Hal, but we need a proper audit of the war. Not just how many people have been killed but how many weapons and how much ammunition we have turned out, at what cost, how much legitimate business has been lost as a result of the war, what the expense is going to be for looking after families where the father is dead, what the cost of rebuilding damaged buildings is going to be, what the cost of medicines has been, how many ships have been sunk and what it will take to replace them. What we owe the Americans. I’m just mentioning the obvious things, of course. I want you, with Nadia’s help—she’s a statistician, by the way—to amass figures for everything. You have a head for this type of thing. I can’t be sure how cleanly we are going to win the war but sure as hell we don’t want to lose the peace. Do you understand?”

“I understand, sir, but—”

“But what?”

“Aren’t people kind of busy just now, to provide such figures?”

“Ah! A good point but your authority comes from the prime minister, Lloyd George himself. He will tell the cabinet about your new appointment and role this very week and senior figures in all relevant departments will be expecting to hear from you and will be under pressure from the P.M. himself to respond promptly. Don’t worry about that. This is important work. Top secret, of course.”

It was so top secret that I can’t put some of my findings down on paper even now. But it is fair to say that over the next few months, Nadia and I became, so far as I know,
the
most well-informed individuals on what the war had cost the country. The brigadier was as good as his word and Lloyd George’s instructions to the cabinet produced the intended effect. I found that my name was known around Whitehall even if my face wasn’t. I learned to use the telephone, and senior people—very senior people, indeed—took my calls, or returned them promptly.

Our first task was to establish what Britain’s level of economic activity was in August 1914. That wasn’t too difficult. Finding out what had happened since wasn’t anywhere near as straightforward. I suppose the best idea I had, on this front, was to ask each permanent secretary—the civil service bigwig in the relevant departments—to recommend one individual whom they trusted and I could deal with. That way I wasn’t passed from pillar to post, and no one could hide. In effect, I had about a score of people working directly to me.

It was exhilarating work and there were two consequences. One, I paid far more detailed attention to the news. The nearer the end of the war seemed, the more pressure there was on me. And two, I started to arrive home later and later. Sam was not pleased.

“You hardly see Will in the mornings, and he’s in bed before you get home. I know that what you’re doing is important, but Will is important too. Can’t you get home early on, say, two nights a week?”

“I’ll try.” I meant it. I had enjoyed telling Will stories and he, I think, enjoyed hearing them.

The following night I did come home early, only to be met not by Will but by a very irate—in fact, a spitting mad—Lottie. As I let myself into the flat, I heard a scream and she came charging down the corridor, her arms outstretched. As soon as she reached me she lunged
forward and tried to run her sharp nails down my cheeks. With difficulty, I held her off—she was much smaller than I was but she was clearly fired up with some grievance or other. That gave her strength.

Sam was not far behind and grabbed at her sister. “Lottie!” she cried. “Stop it!
Stop it!”

We didn’t so much calm her down as pin her against the wall between the two of us.

“What… what the heck is going on?” I managed to breathe at length. “What am I supposed to have done?”

“The military police came here today,” said Sam quietly. “They arrested Reg. Took him away.”

“Why? What’s he done?”

“Deserted,” breathed Sam.

“And you told them!” screamed Lottie. “You gave him away, you lousy
bastard
!”

“I did not!”

“You
did!
You’re the only one who could know his regiment is still at the Front—”

“Lottie, please. I didn’t do anything,” I said.

“You did,
you did!”
she screamed. “You’re a smoothy civil servant sod. You shopped my lovely Reg, the only man I ever had. I hate you!”

She burst into tears and slumped down the wall by the tallboy in the corridor.

We all sat on the floor, breathing heavily. By some miracle Will was asleep.

At length, after a long silence broken only by our breathing and Lottie’s sobs, Sam said softly, “Hal… you didn’t, did you—?”

“Sam! How could you even ask?” I was shocked. Was blood still thicker than water with her? “How could you ask?” I repeated. “Even when someone in the office said he thought that the Yorkshire Fusiliers
were still at the Front, it never crossed my mind… How could you?”

“I’m sorry.”

Again, we sat in silence.

“What… will happen to him, Hal?” Sam asked the question that was on Lottie’s mind.

“If he
has
deserted
… if
he has … he’ll face a court martial.”

“And?”

I said nothing.

“And?”

“It depends on the verdict. I’m sure it won’t—”

“If he’s found guilty?”

They were both looking at me.

“He could be shot.”

Lottie screamed, “Nooo!”

Lottie moved out. She could not be convinced that I had not betrayed Reg and insisted that she no longer wished to share the same roof with me, nor accept my hospitality. And for the first time, she also had some harsh words to say about Sam’s romance with a German, and what the war had done to their family.

Sam was distraught, Will confused.

I was annoyed, more than anything. I had most definitely
not
done what Lottie accused me of doing, and her leaving meant that Sam had now fallen out with two of her sisters. On top of everything, Lottie would no longer be there to babysit. The flat—once Gare Montgomery—felt strangely empty.

We found a daily woman fairly quickly who could clean and look after Will, but it wasn’t the same as having Lottie. There had been no
charades since Faye had gone and now we didn’t even have Lottie’s obsession with the smart set to complain about. There was no singing in the flat.

One good thing among this mess: I had bought Will a (very tiny) cricket bat after the Stratford and Middle Hill trip but he had lost interest, the way children do. The bat and ball lay strewn around his bedroom along with all his other half-forgotten (though jealously guarded) toys. But following the story I had made up for him in Stratford, I had begun reading to him, and he seemed to enjoy that. And so did Whisky, who would lie on the bed during these sessions and go to sleep when Will did. So cozy did these moments become for me that I looked forward to them and began keeping more regular hours, as Sam had asked, leaving work between six and six-thirty so I could see Will and read to him. It also helped keep my relationship with Nadia on a fairly formal basis. Twice she asked me out for a drink after work, but after two refusals she gave up.

Sam and I slipped into an easy, comfortable way of life, staying at home most evenings. She had found that the daughter of the local pub landlord would babysit at weekends and so we didn’t miss Lottie as much as we might have done. We resumed our visits to the West End theater, though Saturday matinees lacked some of the atmosphere of evening performances.

THE ONLY FACE-TO-FACE MEETING I HAD
with the prime minister took place in January 1918.

Christmas had, as usual, been a bit tense for me; I was self-conscious for the familiar reason.

There was a lot of news just then out of America, which was experiencing its first Christmas under arms since 1864, the Civil War.

The brigadier gave me barely twenty-four hours’ notice about the meeting with Lloyd George. I had just arrived at the office one morning when he came in and said, simply, “This part of your report… the section on what we owe America…”

“Yes sir?”

“The prime minister wants to discuss it.”

“Oh.”

“Eight A.M. tomorrow. Be here at seven-thirty. We’ll walk across to Downing Street together.”

“Yes sir. What… what in particular does he want to discuss?”

“I don’t know and he doesn’t have to tell me in advance. He’s the prime minister, for Christ’s sake. Don’t be late.”

It was a glorious winter morning—bitterly cold, sunshine as bright as butter—when the brigadier and I walked up Whitehall and turned into Downing Street. Inside, No. 10 was bigger than I’d expected, and we were taken to a room deep within. Lloyd George didn’t keep us waiting but we weren’t his first meeting of the day, far from it. We heard others leaving the next-door room; then the P.M. came through to us.

He was smaller than I’d expected and his hair was whiter in the flesh, so to speak, than it seemed in the engravings in the newspapers, and his mustache was bushier. His eyes shone up at me as we shook hands, and he then waved us to a seat.

“Colonel Montgomery,” he said. “That was a fine operation last year in Switzerland. I expect it took some getting over, killing a man in cold blood—I mean, someone who wasn’t a stranger?”

“Thank you, sir. All I can say is I did it, and that I still dream about it.”

He nodded. “I can understand that. War twists all our lives. But you’d have cracked by now if you were going to. Think of that. You are doing an invaluable service now, with all these figures. And you will be rewarded after the war. A knighthood, I should think. But keep that to yourself.” He smiled. “Now, our debt to America. It is of course colossal—not just materially but morally as well. The material side is easy to calculate—well, not easy perhaps but doable. But what about morally?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

“Your report set me thinking. Our debt to America can’t be measured only in material terms. Their support means we have a moral obligation as well. That’s what got me going.” He brushed his mustache with his thumb. “We know how much a submarine costs, a tank, we know what it costs to replace a building that has been shelled or bombed. But how do we calculate the value of a life?”

“I’m not sure we can.”

“But that’s what I’m asking. The brigadier here says you are a very imaginative man. You are working on these costs. As you go along, I want you to give some thought as to how we might—might—try to calculate the cost of a life.” He held up his hands. “I know that may sound crass, crude, may offend religious people. But this war has been terrible in its human costs, and even if we don’t get the enemy to repay
everything, calculating what has been lost in human terms, what the dead
could
have achieved,
created
, earned, how many doctors we have lost, how many inventors, how many brilliant businessmen, actors, writers … We need to have some idea, if we can, of who and what has been lost.
Quality
as well as quantity. How many books would have been written by our people who have been killed, how many pictures painted, songs and symphonies composed, concerts given. When I say ‘our,’ I mean our side, America included. We need to show our appreciation of their help. In its way it will be a great monument to the war. Now do you see what I mean?”

“Yes, sir. I think that’s an exciting idea, if it’s doable.”

“That’s what I’m asking. Let me know in a month whether you think it’s doable. I don’t want it done by then, just a feasibility report. Can you do it? Will you do it?”

“I’ll give it a go, sir.”

“Good. Good man. And don’t leave out the women. Don’t skimp on what they’ve done for us. There’s going to be a female emancipation bill some time soon. Remember that.”

“No sir, I won’t.”