Orders from Berlin (3 page)

And then at the end of the day he had been caught up in the drama when the unexpected summons had come from the prime minister’s office and he and Thorn had set off together through the park. Now the day’s fighting seemed to be over – there was no more sign of the enemy, only a few British fighters patrolling overhead, although Seaforth knew that the bombers would almost certainly return after dark to rain down more terror on the city’s population. Seaforth wondered about the outcome of the day’s battle. He’d tried to talk to Thorn about it, but Thorn had shown no interest in conversation.

Seaforth didn’t like Thorn; he didn’t like him at all. He objected to the disdainful, upper-class voice in which Thorn spoke to him, treating him like a member of some inferior species. He rebelled against having to answer to a man for whom he had no respect. He tipped his felt hat back at a rakish angle and amused himself with trying to annoy Thorn into talking to him.

‘Is it true what they say, that Churchill receives visitors in his bath?’ he asked. ‘I hope he doesn’t do that with us. I think I’d find it hard to concentrate. Wouldn’t you?’

Thorn grunted and stopped to light a cigarette, cupping the lighted match in his hand to protect it from the wind.

‘You hear so many strange things,’ Seaforth went on, undaunted by his companion’s lack of response. ‘Like how he takes so many risks, going up on the roof of Downing Street to watch the bombs and the dogfights – as if
he’s convinced that not
hing will ever happen to him, like he’s
got some kind of divine protection; a contract with the Almighty.’

‘Why are you so interested in where he goes?’ Thorn asked sharply.

‘I’m not. I’m just trying to make conversation,’ said Seaforth amicably.

‘Well, don’t.’

‘Whatever you say, old man,’ said Seaforth, shrugging. He whistled a few bars of a patriotic song and then went back on the attack, taking a perverse pleasure in Thorn’s growing irritation.

‘How many times have you seen the PM? Before now, I mean?’ he asked.

‘Two or three. I don’t know,’ said Thorn. ‘Does it matter?’

‘I’m just trying to get an idea of what to expect, that’s all. Where did you go – to Number 10 or this underground place?’

‘You ask too many damn questions,’ said Thorn, putting an end to the conversation. He took a long drag on his cigarette, inhaling the smoke deep into his lungs. He was trying not to think about Seaforth or the forthcoming interview with the Prime Minister, and the effort was making his head ache.

He was eaten up with a mass of competing thoughts and emotions, and he felt too tired to work out where genuine
distrust of Seaforth ended and his own selfish resentment of
the young upstart began. Churchill’s summons to the two of them had placed him in an impossible position. His inclusion was recognition that he was the one in charge of German intelligence, but Thorn knew perfectly well that it was Seaforth Churchill wanted to talk to. It was Seaforth’s report that the Prime Minister wanted to discuss; it was Seaforth’s high-value agent in Germany he was interested in. Thorn was no better than a redundant extra at their meeting.

They reached Horse Guards and climbed the steps to 2 Storey’s Gate. Thorn felt a renewed surge of irritation as h
e sensed S
eaforth’s growing excitement. They showed th
eir special day-passes
to a blue-uniformed Royal Marine standing with a fixed bayonet at the entrance and went down the steep spiral staircase leading to the bunker. Through a great iron door and past several more sentries, they came to a corridor leading into the labyrinth. Seaforth blinked in the bright artificial light and greedily took in his surroundings – whitewashed brick walls and big red steel girders supporting the ceilings. It was like being inside the bowels of a ship, Seaforth thought. The air was stale, almost fetid, despite the continuous hum of the ubiquitous ventilation fans pumping in filtered air from outside, and there was an atmosphere of concentrated activity all around them. Through the open doors of the rooms that they passed, Seaforth saw secretaries typing and men talking animatedly into telephones – some in uniform, some in suits. People hurried by in both directions, and Seaforth was struck by the paleness of their faces, caused no doubt by a prolonged deprivation of light and fresh air. Tellingly, a notice on the wall described the day’s weather conditions, as if this were the only way the inhabitants of this God-forsaken underworld would ever know whether the sun was shining or rain was falling in the world above.

They stopped outside the open door of the Map Room. This was the nerve centre of the bunker, where information about the war was continually being received, collated, and distributed. Two parallel lines of desks ran down the centre of the room, divided from each other by a bank of different-coloured telephones – green, white, ivory, and red – the so-called beauty chorus. They didn’t ring but instead flashed continuously, answered by officers in uniform sitting at the desks. Over on a blackboard in the corner, the day’s ‘score’ was marked up in chalk – Luftwaffe on the left with fifty-three down and RAF on the right with twenty-two. It was a significant number of ‘kills’ but fewer than Seaforth had anticipated, judging from the mayhem he’d witnessed in the skies over London during the day.

Seaforth’s eyes watered. The thick fug of cigarette smoke blown about by the electric fans on the wall made him feel sick, but he swallowed the bile rising in his throat, determined to see everything and to try to understand everything he saw. No detail escaped his notice – the codebooks and documents littering the desks lit up by the green reading lamps; the map of the Atlantic on the far wall with different-coloured pins showing the up-to-date location of the convoys crossing to and from America; the stand of locked-up Lee-Enfield rifles just inside the entrance to the room.

‘What are you looking at?’ asked a hostile voice close to his ear. It was Thorn. Seaforth had been so absorbed in his observation of the Map Room that he had momentarily forgotten his companion. But Thorn had clearly not forgotten him. He was staring at Seaforth, his eyes alive with suspicion.

‘Everything,’ said Seaforth. ‘This is the heart of the operation. Of course I’m curious.’

‘Curiosity killed the cat,’ said Thorn acidly.

‘Mr Thorn, Mr Seaforth. If I could just see your passes?’ A man in a dark suit had appeared as if from nowhere. ‘Good. Thank you. If you’d like to come this way. The Prime Minister will see you now.’

They passed through an ante-room, turned to their left, and suddenly found themselves in the presence of Winston Churchill, dressed not in a bathrobe but in an expensive double-breasted pinstripe suit with a gold watch chain stretched across his capacious stomach. He was wearing his trademark polka-dot bow tie and a spotless white handkerchief folded into a precise triangle in his top pocket. It was the Churchill that was familiar from countless Pathé newsreels and photographs, except for the stovepipe hat, and that was hanging on a stand in the corner. Without the hat he seemed older – the wispy strands of hair on his head and the pudginess of his face made him seem more a vulnerable, careworn old man than the indomitable British bulldog of popular imagination.

He got up from behind his kneehole desk just as they came in, depositing a half-smoked Havana cigar in a large ashtray that contained the butts of two more.

‘Hello, Alec,’ he said, shaking Thorn’s hand. ‘Good of you to come – sorry about the short notice. And this must be the resourceful Mr Seaforth,’ he went on, fixing a look of penetrating enquiry on Thorn’s companion, who had hung back as they’d entered the room, as if overcome by an uncharacteristic shyness now that he was about to meet the most famous Englishman of his generation.

Eagerness and then timidity: Thorn was puzzled by the sudden change in Seaforth, who seemed momentarily reluctant to go forward and shake Churchill’s outstretched hand. And then, when he did so, Thorn could have sworn that Seaforth grimaced as if in revulsion at the physical contact. But Churchill didn’t seem to notice, and Thorn realized that it could well be the cigar smoke that was causing Seaforth discomfort. He was well aware how much Seaforth hated tobacco, and the sight of his subordinate’s nauseated expression had been the only redeeming feature for Thorn of Seaforth’s recent inclusion at strategy meetings in the smoke-filled conference room back at HQ.

‘I don’t need you, Thompson,’ said Churchill. For a moment, Thorn had no idea whom the Prime Minister w
as talking to, until he turned to his right and realiz
ed t
hat another man was present in the room. It was W
alter Thompson, Churchill’s personal bodyguard, sitting like a waxwork in the corner, tall and ramrod straight. Without a word, Thompson went out and closed the door behind him.

‘Drink?’ asked Churchill, crossing to a side table and mixing
himself a generous whisky and soda. ‘By God, I need one.
I hate being down here with the rest of the trogs, but Thomp
son and the rest of them insist on it when the bombing gets bad, so I don’t suppose I’ve got too much choice. I’d much prefer to have been up topside watching the battle. Seems like Goering’s thrown everything he’s got at us today, but the brass tell me we’ve weathered the storm so far, at least. You know, I don’t think I’ve been as proud of anyone as I’ve been of our pilots these last few weeks. Tested in t
he fiery furnace day after day, night a
fter night, and each time they come out ready for action. Extraordinary!’

Churchill looked up, holding out the whisky bottle. Thorn accepted the offer, but Seaforth declined.

‘Not a teetotaller, are you?’ asked Churchill, eyeing Seaforth with a look of distrust.

‘No, sir,’ said Seaforth. ‘I just want to have all my wits about me, that’s all. I’m expecting some difficult questions.’

‘Are you now?’ said Churchill, raising his eyebrows quizzically as he resumed his seat and waved his visitors to chairs on the other side of the desk. ‘Well, it was certainly an interesting report you sent in,’ he observed, putting on his round-rimmed black reading glasses and examining a document that he’d extracted from a buff-coloured box perched precariously on the corner of the desk. ‘Lots of nuts-and-bolts information, which I like, but most of it saying how well prepared Herr Hitler is for his cross-Channel excursion, which I like rather less. We knew about the heavy build-up of artillery and troops in the Pas-de-Calais, of
course, but the number of tanks they’ve converted to amphi
bious use is an unpleasant surprise, and we’d assumed up to now that most of their landing craft were going to be unpowered.’

‘They’ve installed BMW aircraft engines on the barges,’ said Seaforth. ‘They seem to work, apparently.’

‘So I see. Five hundred tanks converted to amphibious use,’ said Churchill, reading from the document. ‘It’s a large number if they can get them across, but that’ll depend on the weather, of course, and who’s in control of the air, and we seem to be holding our own in that department, at least for now, at any rate.’

‘There are the figures for Luftwaffe air production in the report as well – on the last page,’ said Seaforth, leaning forward, pointing with his finger.

‘Yes,’ said Churchill. ‘Again far higher than we expected. But to be taken with a pinch of salt, I think. Goering would be likely to exaggerate the numbers for his master’s benefit.’ He put down the report, looking at Seaforth over the tops of his glasses as if trying to get the measure of him. ‘Your agent’s report is basically a summary of what was discussed at the last Berghof conference, with a few opinions of his own thrown in for good measure. Is that a fair description, Mr Seaforth?’

‘He’s verified the facts where he can,’ said Seaforth.

‘But he’s an army man working for General Halder, who’s another army man,’ said Churchill. ‘He’s not going to have inside information about the Luftwaffe.’

‘He knows one hell of a lot for an ADC, and a recently promoted one at that,’ Thorn observed sourly. It was his first intervention in the conversation.

‘Too good to be true? Is that what you’re saying, Alec?’ asked Churchill, looking at Thorn with interest.

‘Too right I am. The source material was nothing like this before. Now it’s the Führer this, the Führer that. It’s like we’re sitting round a table with Hitler, listening to him tell us about his war aims.’

‘My agent didn’t have access before to Führer conferences,’ Seaforth said obdurately. ‘Now he does.’

‘Why’s he helping us?’ asked Churchill. ‘Tell me that.’

‘Because he hates Hitler,’ said Seaforth. ‘A lot of the general staff do. And he has Jewish relatives – he’s angry about what’s happening over there.’

‘How well do you know this agent of yours?’

‘I recruited him personally when I was in Berlin before the war. He felt the same way then – he loved his country but hated where it was going. I have complete confidence in him.’

‘As do his superiors, judging from his recent promotion,’ observed Churchill caustically. He was silent for a moment, scratching his chin, looking long and hard at the two intelligence officers as if he were about to make a wager and were considering which one of them to place his money on. ‘Betrayal is something I’ve always found hard to understand – even when it’s an act committed for the best of motives,’ he said finally. ‘It’s outside my field of expertise. But we certainly cannot afford to look a gift horse in the mouth, even if we do choose to regard the animal with some healthy scepticism. So, let us assume for a moment that what your agent says is true and that Hitler is ready and determined to come and pay us a visit once he’s got all his forces assembled—’

‘He thinks Hitler doesn’t want to,’ said Seaforth, interrupting.

‘Thinks!’ Thorn repeated scornfully.

‘Hitler said as much at the conference,’ said Seaforth, leaning forward eagerly. ‘He wants to negotiate—’

‘A generous peace based broadly on the status quo,’ said Churchill, finishing Seaforth’s sentence by quoting verbatim from the report. ‘And that may well be exactly what he does want,’ he observed equably, picking up his smouldering cigar and leaning back in his chair. ‘The Führer thinks he is ver
y cunning, but at
bottom the way his mind works is very simple. He’s a racist – he wants to fight Slavs, not Anglo-Saxons. But the point is it doesn’t matter what he wants. We cannot negotiate with the Nazis however many Messerschmitts and submersible tanks they may have lined up against us. Do you remember what I called them when I became Prime Minister four months ago – “a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime”?’ Churchill had the gift of an actor – his voice changed, becoming grave and solemn as he recited the line from his speech. But then he smiled, taking another draw on his cigar. ‘Grand words, I know, but the truth. We must defeat Hitler or die in the attempt. There is no hope for any of us otherwise. And so the strength of his invasion force and his wish for peace cannot change our course.’