Winston’s War (29 page)

A woman in the front row wanted to applaud, had her hands raised and ready, yet let them fall back to her lap, not daring to break the moment.

“So let us, tonight, resolve to cut out the cancer of confusion and division from within this constituency. Let us look not inwards, but outward to the duties that lie before us and before the entire British nation. The great constituency of Epping should be a beacon, not an object of derision and idle speculation in the columns of the gutter press. So I ask that the issue should be decided—here and now. That we should walk from this room knowing whether I have your fullest confidence, and your unfettered support to continue to speak out, or whether
you wish another to take my place. I ask any of you who still have doubts about my beliefs or abilities, to rise so that we may share our differences openly and in amity, as old friends should.”

Not a muscle was moved. Now he dropped his voice, humbled, catching on the emotion of the moment. Just as he had practiced throughout the long afternoon.

“And to those who wish me to remain at my task, as your spokesman, I can do nothing more than to promise you my unflinching service, and to all of you, my friends, my heartfelt and most humble thanks.”

His chin fell to his chest, offering a tiny bow of gratitude. They rose as one to applaud. Many of the women were weeping, Churchill too, the tears flooding down his cheeks. There would be no more opposition, no more tittle-tattle about dumping him. There might well be mutterings in dark corners. They would claim that this was entirely unorthodox, a constitutional abuse, that it was not a properly convened gathering of the association and therefore had no powers to impose any decisions. They would argue that it was nothing less than a case of outright bloody banditry, and they would be right. But none of them would dare come out into the daylight and say so.

What had Burgess said, the first time they met, sitting around the table at Chartwell? Words are weapons, sometimes the only weapons left with which to fight, but in the right hands they can prove the most powerful weapons of all. A remarkable and perceptive man, was young Burgess. Churchill thought he rather liked him.

C
hamberlain had extraordinary recuperative powers. He could no longer deny that things had gone wrong— dreadfully, hopelessly wrong—but since most of the rest of the British Establishment had been guilty of precisely the same misjudgments there were plenty of others with whom he could huddle for warmth. There was an excellent chance that their memories—and therefore their desire for recrimination—might fail them completely. Where there was office, there was hope.

He was standing in front of a full-length mirror in his bedroom, fumbling with the collar stud that secured the ruffled collar of his court dress, when there came an apologetic knock at the door. Wilson and Ball stepped forward with a marked degree of trepidation—it had been another wretched day. That morning the Baltic state of Lithuania had handed over the strategic port of Memel to Germany rather than face the threat of invasion and aerial bombardment. The Wehrmacht marched on. And, almost more terrifyingly, in Westminster a posse of women had paraded up and down outside Parliament clad in sandwich boards that carried the single word—CHURCHILL.

“Forgive the intrusion, Neville…”

“You're just in time. Tell me, are my stockings straight? The buckles on the breeches?”

They muttered affirmation.

“Got to maintain standards, you know. Damned important, standards.”

“You're seeing the French President tonight—”

“Of course I'm seeing the French President tonight,” Chamberlain snapped, the irritation of the day finally bursting through. “Why else am I getting dressed up like a bloody tropical parrot?”

The collar stud spat away and rolled across the floor. Wilson scurried to retrieve it, rather too quickly, grateful for the chance to duck out of the firing line. Chamberlain did this when he was exhausted, took it out on those closest to him when it seemed that the whole world was aiming its barbs at him. It helped him to pass on some of the pain. Wilson tried to return the stud to the Prime Minister but he was having none of it, standing to attention, arms by his side, chin held high, expecting Wilson to finish the job like any lickspittle servant. Chamberlain didn't intend rudeness to his friend, it was simply that his moods were at times mercurial. It was also the fact that in recent days he had discovered that his own fingers would no longer bend to his command, his hand had developed a tremor which made things like collar studs almost impossible. He didn't know why; tiredness, perhaps. But when you reach your seventieth birthday, as Chamberlain had the previous week, you stop asking why, because most of the answers you received you simply don't want to hear.

“It's just that the President will press you,” Wilson purred, swallowing both the slight and the temptation to choke his Prime Minister, “to send more men to France. We've four divisions there while Hitler has hundreds. The French think it's all a bit one-sided.”

“Of course it's one-sided. Any fool can see that!”

“The Bore-Belisha's been banging the same drum for weeks,” Ball observed.

“As I said, any fool…” Chamberlain hissed.

“He's also pushing very hard for conscription. Whispering it in every ear, twisting every arm he can lay his hands on.”

“Then warn them to count their change!” Chamberlain barked, and the collar stud flew away once more, diving under the wardrobe. It was Ball's turn to fall on his hands and chubby knees to retrieve it, accompanied by a series of grunts and wheezes which suggested it had been a long time since he'd bent any lower than an armchair. He handed the stud over once more, and sat down on the end of the bed to recover.

“Won't be easy to rebuff him, Neville. He's even been heard muttering about resignation.”

“Then perhaps the time has come to let him go wander amongst the tribes,” Chamberlain snorted in disdain. Up close, Wilson noticed how spent his eyes were, how fiercely he seemed to have to struggle in order to pry the lids apart. They were red, raw.

“No, Neville, not now,” Wilson responded, his tone soothing but his manner determined. “Not a time to go making martyrs, not when they're all still so giddy after the Czech nonsense. Leslie has friends.”

“So what am I supposed to do—give in? I'm surprised at you, Horace.”

“Conscription is something we'll have to consider, Neville, like it or not. Perhaps this is one matter on which we should let Leslie have his head.”

“And have him doing his little jig through every watering hole in Westminster claiming he's running the Government? Never—never that!”

“You said yourself that standing still is no longer an option, not with every border post in central Europe having its door kicked in.”

Ball watched from a safe distance, not prepared to get between them. He'd seen it all before, the Prime Minister and Wilson, his
alter ego
, knocking around the strengths of a policy or the flaws of a personality. And when they had settled the matter, together, in agreement, as they always did, he was never quite sure who had won. But as Wilson had told him once, “It doesn't matter who's won—only that Neville thinks he's won.”

And so it was. “Very well, Horace. Time to take charge. If Leslie wants to dance, then we shall set the tune. If we must have conscription—”

“I think we do.”

“Then let it be done our way.”

“What way is that?”

Chamberlain turned on him, his expression mocking, the collar still dangling loose. “I would have thought better of you, Horace. Didn't you know I've always thought conscription might be necessary? I'll announce it to the Cabinet next week. Explain that the reason I've held my hand on the matter so long is…”—he glanced around the room as though in search of a lost sock—“why, because of my concern for the sensitivities of the trade unions.”

“Trade unions?” Wilson repeated slowly, unable to hide his disbelief. From the end of the bed, Ball clapped his hands in appreciation.

“Precisely. I want it all on the official record. Cabinet minutes. It's got to be clear. I want you to make sure there's no confusion—no suggestion we've been forced into backtracking. Call in Dawson and the others. Give them a briefing. Why, with any luck Attlee and those idiots in the Labour Party will oppose the whole damned thing and we can blame any confusion upon them.”

“But what do we announce, Neville? What is this plan
of ours?”

“Good grief, Horace, what do I pay you for? You must have
something locked away in your bottom drawer. Get it out. Dust it down. Just make sure it doesn't sound like Leslie's.”

Wilson was still crouching beneath the prime-ministerial chin, his fingers aching from his exertions. It shouldn't have been such a struggle. Chamberlain had lost weight recently, everything seemed to hang on him a little loosely, even his politics. But at last the collar stud was pressed home and order restored.

“We need something big, Neville,” Ball was saying, picking up the embroidered tail coat that was laid out beside him and preparing to slip it around Chamberlain's shoulders. “A grand idea that'll really grab them by their balls. We're under pressure.”

“I think Joe's right,” Wilson added. “Hitler didn't just march into Prague, he stamped all over your parliamentary majority.”

Chamberlain stood to attention in front of the mirror, examining every detail.

“I've spent sleepless nights thinking the same thing. Something to restore our fortunes. Some dramatic gesture that will put the Czech nonsense behind us. Something that will make even Herr Hitler sit up and take notice. I resent what he did, you know, more bitterly than I can express. He gave me his word, said he had no more territorial claims in Europe. He promised me—
promised
me—that he had no further interest in Czechoslovakia. Then he made a fool of me. Can't let him get away with that again.” He was still staring into the mirror, picking off a stray golden thread and straightening his medals. At last he seemed satisfied. “You're right. Something dramatic. Demonstrate that he can go no further. Draw a line.”

“Draw a line, Neville—but where?” Wilson inquired, still straightening his aching back.

“Poland. That's what we're going to do. We're going to guarantee Poland.”

Spring was revealing its usual feelings towards the grime-smeared and soul-scratched city of London. It was raining. Not
a downpour, more a brisk shower, which Burgess relished. He stood for a while, counting the droplets as they landed on his thick hair and trickled down his face. It had been a long time since he felt so refreshed, almost clean. He loved water—he could swim like a fish as well as drink like one—yet it had been months since he'd found time to visit a pool—well, in truth, since the afternoon the caretaker at the Hackney Metropolitan had taken an active dislike to the amount of time he was spending in the changing rooms and had threatened to call the police. Ridiculous thing was, Burgess hadn't been taking liberties, only an after-lunch nap. It was warm, womb-like in there, a place to curl up and indulge in the make-believe that the world which waited to pounce on him at any moment had simply gone away. He had fantasies at times about the womb, and his mother, and his long-dead father, and the replacement husband who lay between his mother's legs—a place which was
his
space, the first place in this world he had ever known and which had now been taken from him. From the day he had passed puberty he had wondered what it would be like to have sex with his mother. He'd once told his housemaster at Eton, old F.W. Dobbs, about these thoughts, blurted them out over tea and buttered crumpets on a Sunday afternoon. They would pass, came the kindly reply. But they hadn't. He knew it was all a little twisted, but no more twisted than supposedly normal men blowing the entire fucking world apart.

His digressions made him late. He was always late, Mac had got to know that, and the barber was a patient man. He had still only taken an inch off the top of his beer by the time Burgess rushed in, a good forty minutes after he had promised. He sat there dripping, gently steaming, as Mac began his tale about his most recent summons.

“So they tell me to go to the rear entrance.”

“Not the front?”

“No, I said the rear. You think I can't tell the difference? I
get my things together, walk down through Green Park and St. James's, and half an hour later I'm being taken up to his office.”

“Whose office exactly?”

“Halifax's.”

“
Lord
Halifax?” Burgess responded, startled. “You're sure?”

“'Course I'm sure. How many people do you know about a foot taller than yourself and with only one arm? And I wish you'd stop interrupting me. You want me to feel as though I'm back in bloody Russia?”

“Sorry, Mac.” Burgess took a mouthful of whiskey and tried to swill it around for as long as he could, drowning his sudden impatience. Mac hadn't made it clear on the phone why he'd wanted to meet—couldn't have, of course, he'd been told to say nothing on the phone. But a house call on Halifax?