WC02 - Never Surrender (18 page)

Oh, but what did it matter? The captain was going back to Calais and he was going to die. He turned angrily. "You've sent a motorcycle unit. Without any bloody motorcycles!"

A hush fell across the room. They each waited for the other to reprimand this overwrought officer, or at least to contradict him, but no one did.

"Can this it true?" Churchill eventually asked.

"Sir," the captain began, about to throw away his reputation, after which throwing away his life would seem so much simpler. "The First Battalion, Queen Victoria's Rifles, is a territorial unit, not regular army. They are a motorcycle reconnaissance unit.

The QVR arrived in Calais yesterday without their motorcycles or any wireless equipment. Many of the men are armed with nothing but revolvers." He couldn't stop now. "I regret to inform you, gentlemen, that the QVR are having the greatest difficulties with these revolvers. They don't seem to be very good at stopping panzers."

Military brows in every part of the room turned purple with indignation, but so did Churchill's. He crushed his cigar in his fist something that Bracken had never seen before in all his years with the old man. The flakes of tobacco rained about him like discarded reputations.

"Somebody - one of you tell me that this is not true."

No one spoke.

Churchill turned to the young officer. "Captain, who is your commanding officer?"

"Brigadier Nicholson, sir."

"And what does he need?"

The captain recited a short list of requirements, the first of which was to establish a chain of command that bypassed most of the War Office. Nicholson had said that might give them a fighting chance ... "Agreed. Anything else?"

"Your prayers."

"Captain, rest assured. And rest yourself. You look as if you have had an unusually long day."

"With permission, sir, I'd rather return directly to Calais. To brief Brigadier Nicholson. I think I can be of more use there than in a bed in London."

"Then fly, and fight. Go with our prayers, and our thanks."

The captain saluted, more sharply this time, and was gone.

It took a moment for Churchill to compose himself. A rage was upon him that demanded to be cast upon these useless men, but it would be better dealt with at another time. He turned his back on the military. "Brendan, that young officer reminds me of someone," Churchill muttered.

"Who?"

"Me, of course."

At last he turned to the others. "Who was that remarkable young man?"

No one knew. And they never did find out, not even after the battle for Calais had finished.

EIGHT

The librarian glanced up from her reading of the Evening Standard and looked across to the far side of the reading room. She was worried by what she had just read, and her concern flowed into irritation at the woman who had spent all morning in the archives section, reading old copies of The Times.

For some while after her appearance in the community, the librarian had tried to treat Ruth Mueller as just another refugee, one of the many that had flooded into London in the last few years. But Mrs. Mueller was different, so unlike the rest. There was not a trace of Jewishness in her makeup and she didn't mix with the others, keeping herself very much to herself. On one occasion another refugee had muttered at her in Yiddish and she had shaken her head violently and almost run out of the room. She offered no clues as to her background, but it was clear she was neither Pole nor Czech, which left little doubt. The librarian came to the same conclusion as the women in the butcher's shop: Ruth Mueller was German, or Austrian. Either way, what was she doing here in London? How was it right that she was living off others, when the war started by her own kind meant there wasn't enough to go round even for Londoners?

And why was she asking so many questions about Winston Churchill?

She was sitting there now, going through old newspapers with meticulous care, searching for every reference to him even his father.

And she called herself Mrs. Mueller, but if that were so, where was her husband?

Everyone leads a double life nowadays, the librarian thought. She herself had several lives not only in the library but as a market gardener on her father's allotment and as a Red Cross volunteer three nights a week. But what sort of double life did Mrs. Mueller lead?

Nothing about this woman seemed to add up. In a time when walls had ears and careless talk cost lives, strangers were not only a matter of curiosity but also of concern. There was all sorts of talk about fifth columnists who masqueraded as civilians but who fought for the enemy, even tales about German soldiers dressed up as nuns or policemen. You couldn't trust anyone in these times, and there was something very odd about Mrs. Mueller, the librarian decided. Somebody should do something about it.

In the time they took to reach Calais they saw not a single German soldier. They crept along through a strange no man's land of war. The Germans had already passed through it but had neither stopped nor yet returned, while French troops mostly sat around and waited indolently for when they did. On all sides, refugees swirled backwards and forwards like fish in a narrowing net.

The sous-lieutenant's first name was neither Pierre nor Pascal, but Claude. Claude Dubuis. As they drove, the Frenchman began to fill in a few more of the gaps: his earlier life as a junior customs official at Calais, which had given him his good command of English; his family a widowed mother, his younger sister (he'd lied about having a brother), a jealous stepfather and an ageless story of male rivalries that had ended with Claude leaving home for a new life in the military. He was lean, a long-distance runner, he explained: "They thought I would fit comfortably into a cockpit." So they had put him in the air service, I'armee de I'air.

"And you found a new family," Don concluded quietly.

In response, Claude stared bitterly at the groups of idle soldiers and spat.

They were not many miles from Calais. As they came nearer and he began to recognize familiar landmarks, Claude grew increasingly agitated and insisted they drive on through the failing light. As the day faded, they found themselves passing a wayside field in which a large number of small fires were flickering refugees, several hundred of them, and most with nothing for protection but the clothes they wore. At the sight of military uniforms, several began to complain and gesticulate. They were not welcome. From the darkness came a priest, young, weary, his soutane stained with dirt, who led them aside and explained that the refugees had only that afternoon tried to force their way into Calais but had been turned back from one of the bridges.

"By the Germans?"

"Non, by the English. At gunpoint. They say it is too dangerous."

"We are going to Calais," Claude responded defiantly.

"It will be dangerous for you, too," the priest responded sadly. He led Don and the hobbling Frenchman to a bank of thick trees at the end of the field, and from its far side they could see it all. It was a clear, warm night and the view stretched before them for miles. They had no difficulty in seeing Calais in the darkness. The town was burning at every point, the battlements of its old walls outlined in cruel detail against the orange and yellow flames that ate at every part. Explosions echoed through the night as its arteries burst; the town seemed to be crying in pain. An ancient church steeple had been almost eaten by fire. Even as they watched, it fell, crashing to the ground and sending up a plume of smoke and violent ash. It was like watching the sacking of a medieval fortress. Calais was being burned alive.

In the distance, beyond the fires, they thought they could see dark shadows on the sea, and the beams of searchlights weaving angry patterns in the sky. The coast of Dover.

Home.

"These people wanted to walk into that?" Don uttered in horror.

"They think they can get boats. Sail to England," the priest explained. "They have nowhere else to go."

"The English army's done them a favour," Don added.

"They do not think so. Many of them are Jews."

The priest pointed to other fires, nearer at hand, which seemed to form a cordon around the city. "The Germans," he said.

"Their signal fires," Claude added.

"Signals to what?" Don asked.

"To their bombers, so the bombs fall on the British and not on themselves."

As they watched, a petrol dump inside the town exploded, sending a fist of swirling fire thrusting to the sky.

"So what do we do now?" Don muttered.

"We go home, of course."

It was an insane suggestion. They would have to run two military cordons with nothing more for cover than a clapped-out jeep, but home was on the other side for both of them. They had to try.

They overcame the German cordon with surprising ease. The Wehrmacht wasn't expecting to be rushed from behind, and even victors have to sleep. But as they crashed their way towards the walls of Calais, a shot rang out from in front of them and they heard the vile sound of a bullet ripping the air only inches above their heads.

"Don't shoot! English!" Don shouted.

"Ne tirez pas!" Claude added in support.

And they were through. But the most difficult part was yet to come.

With a rising sense of urgency they sought out Claude's home, in the suburb of Calais-Saint-Pierre. With every corner, Don could feel his companion's mixture of excitement and rising dread. "It still stands!" the Frenchman exclaimed as they turned into the final street.

But they found Claude's home abandoned, its windows gaping like empty eye-sockets and its door badly boarded. The family Dubuis had fled, evidently in a considerable hurry. But at least they had been able to flee.

"You want to go in?" Don asked.

The Frenchman shook his head. "No. There is no point. We should never have come to this place." Then he fell silent and would say nothing more.

It was Channon's fault. He'd issued what he called a 'prodigious papal bull' that permitted no dissent. They were to dine, and dine lavishly. Colville had protested that he had neither the time nor, in truth, the funds, but Channon had told him to stop being ridiculous. "Chips's treat," he kept singing, leading him by the arm through St. James's to the door of Wiltons, the famed seafood and game restaurant in King Street. Standing in the entrance waiting to greet them was Mrs. Bessie Leal, the establishment's formidable proprietor. Chips placed his cloak on her arm and a kiss on her cheek, and she conducted them to a booth in the most prominent part of the restaurant. Butler was waiting for them.

"Ah, dear Jock, hotfoot from the front line," the Minister greeted. "You look as if you need a drink."

He poured. A Krug Private Cuvee. Something hidden deep in Colville's memory bank suggested that this was expensive; the taste confirmed it. Everything was excessively good: the smoked salmon, the Scottish lobsters, none of it falling foul of the ration. The price took care of that. The steak, kidney and oyster pie, too, washed down by a prodigious Haut-Brion claret.

"Chips, what are we celebrating?" Colville ventured, confused.

"Celebrating?"

"I don't wish to appear ungrateful, but I've just watched two weeks' wages tipped down our throats and we've scarcely started."

"My dear Jock, inside a couple of weeks every penny we have might well be worthless. Money will be fit only for throwing at urchins and lighting fires, so I thought we'd enjoy it while we still may."

"And I hear our Prime Minister is scarcely stinting himself," Butler added.

It was true. War had not disrupted Churchill's legendary dinners. They were as important to him as oxygen indeed, perhaps more so. Oxygen enabled him to survive, while dinner enabled him to live, and the stain-encrusted lapels of his suit bore witness to the fact that the old man lived well.

"How is our dear leader?" Butler continued. "I fear he's overworking. Trying to do not only his job but everybody else's job, too. Would you believe that the Foreign Office received a long note from him yesterday instructing us about the poor punctuation and grammar in some of our recent despatches? War rages across France and yet he finds time to manoeuvre commas around the page. Extraordinary. Or perhaps it's his sense of humour."

"Forgive me, but it's been a difficult day and I'm not sure my own sense of humour is up to all this."

"No, it's you who must forgive me, Jock." Butler laid a hand on the sleeve of his young companion in a gesture of apology and affection. "As you say, these are hard times. And if I seem light-hearted, it's only because at times I daren't think about what's happening to us. All my fears are taking form. We should never have started with this wretched war, and why are we still fighting it? Explain it to me. For Czechoslovakia? It's gone! For Poland? Gone, too, and good riddance! For France, when it won't even fight for itself? Or is it that we are fighting for no better reason than Winston's overweening pride?" Butler gripped Colville's arm more tightly, in warning. "He doesn't get on with his Ministers; he is coming to be loathed by his generals. The French are in despair at his hollow lectures, and the Americans simply ignore him. I even hear reports that Roosevelt, far from admiring him, has always regarded him as totally second-rate. It's a conclusion that seems to be almost unanimous." The fingers were now digging fiercely, even painfully, into Colville's arm. "Jock, we are a great nation. We cannot allow one man to ruin it!"

Colville had never known Rab quite so venomous. It was said he had a mean streak, that he was the only man in the kingdom who could stretch a partridge to six, but he seemed intent on carving Churchill even thinner.

It was impossible to deny the faults in the old man. He was so mercurial. A dozen daft ideas came with his morning rashers, but hidden in amongst them was occasionally a shaft of pure brilliance. Abusive, excessive, impossible, but the next moment in tears of remorse and affection. In truth, Colville didn't know what to make of the man.

Yet if Colville were to exchange his cheap blue suit for a uniform and fight at the sharp end, as he planned, who would he want guarding his back? Not Joe Kennedy, for sure, not even in broad daylight. And, in truth, probably not Rab either. He was so adept at seeing every side of a question that it made you giddy trying to tag along with his intellectual dances. Men like Chamberlain were reasonable and reliable, but so clearly out of time and place. And perhaps that was the answer. This was not a time and place for reason but for excess in everything in commitment, in courage, in blind faith, in unquenchable and bloody-minded stubbornness. And it was impossible to imagine Winston guarding his back, for he would never be behind him but way out in front, leading the charge himself, demanding that you follow.