WC02 - Never Surrender (38 page)

She shook her head slowly. She understood, but she would never agree. He marched on. And as he did so, he sensed every man and woman in the House marching with him, and behind them many millions more, ready to face the invasion and whatever else lay ahead.

"We are assured that novel methods will be adopted and when we see the originality of malice and the ingenuity of aggression which our enemy displays, we may certainly prepare ourselves for every kind of novel stratagem and every kind of brutal and treacherous manoeuvre."

Brutality and treachery. That is what they faced. Yet round him the faces were filled with hope and belief. Belief in him. "I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny if necessary for years, and if necessary alone. At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of His Majesty's Government, every man of them." He glanced up to where Halifax was sitting, his body leaning forward, like a great derrick ready for its work. Their eyes met. Stiffly, as though aged in rust, the derrick bowed a little lower. Halifax was nodding his acceptance. But he had to take his Foreign Secretary further had to take them all further beyond any shred of ambiguity and obfuscation to a place where only rock-hard certainties prevailed.

"Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous states have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end."

His eyes rose from his triple-spaced script; he no longer needed it. These words came from so deep within Churchill that he had only to close his eyes and they were there. They were the air he breathed, the reason he still lived.

His fist began pounding the Despatch Box with passion, his voice rising. "We shall fight in France. We shall fight on the seas and oceans. We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be."

Sometimes there is nothing left but words, but these weren't just words, they were weapons, a great arsenal he had assembled that would do battle when the bullets were all spent.

"We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender!"

Defiance. Impetuous, unreasonable, unsophisticated, unflinching defiance, raw and uncomplicated. Like a child kicking a straw boater to pieces.

Several Members were openly in tears as he continued. "And even if which I do not for a moment believe this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the Old."

He knew he and his countrymen could not win this war, not on their own but so long as Britain and its Empire remained in the war, neither could Hitler. That would have to be enough. The rotten shell of the world Churchill had grown up in was breaking apart, yet from it might fall a seed that, in time, would grow to glorious victory.

When at last the press of people had allowed him to escape and to return to his rooms at the Admiralty, he found her already there, staring up at the portrait, examining the rip in the canvas. She had guessed.

"Like a cancer, this family thing," she said. "Clings; you can't get rid of it."

He came to stand beside her, staring up at the face. "While I was waiting to begin the speech, I closed my eyes so that I might prepare myself, dig down deep inside. And for the first time in my career, he wasn't there. No longer watching, disapproving."

"I doubt that he ever truly disapproved." She pointed at the prominent eyes of the portrait. "That's not disapproval you can see, it's discomfort discomfort at the thought that his son would grow up to be so much stronger and more capable than he was. Like all sons you would strip away his sense of immortality. But don't you understand? that's precisely what he wanted, to see his own son grow taller than the rest. You are a silly man, Mr. Churchill, but then so are you all all of you silly men."

"I hadn't wanted to admit it before, but part of me hates him."

"Ah, the enemy within."

"Not any longer, I think."

"He will always be your father."

"In truth, not much of one."

"But that is how he will be remembered, not as a politician or a statesman, but as a father. Of a great man."

Churchill looked at her, startled.

"Oh, don't let it go to your head, Mr. Churchill," she smiled, gently mocking, "Hitler makes speeches, too. But not quite like that one."

"Thank you."

A frown crossed her brow. She took a small step back and studied him, as though trying to peer deep inside. "I'm not sure whether you realize, Mr. Churchill, what you have done."

"Neither am I," he responded uncertainly, once again finding himself several paces behind her.

"In three and a half weeks, you have beaten Hitler."

"Beaten him?"

"Oh, he may have won this latest battle but, because of you, he has lost control. You have shown him that unless he is able to defeat you here in these islands, he can never stop this war he has started. There will be no deals, no armistices, no accords, nothing but total victory or his own destruction. You have left him with no other choice. The radio in Berlin talks about the war being over by the end of the summer." She shook her head. "His armies might march all the way to the Great Wall of China and it would make no difference. He has lost control of this war. In order to stop it, Hitler will have to go on conquering until there is no one left to conquer, and not even the Almighty has managed that."

"Do you think he understands all this?"

"Not unless he understands you."

He took her hand it seemed so frail, so vulnerable -raised it to his lips and kissed it with great tenderness. "Then it is my good fortune that you are at my side and not at his. I owe you a debt more profound than I can express."

"You owe me nothing other than his destruction."

She picked up her handbag, preparing to leave.

"What will you do?" Churchill asked.

"I shall wait for you to win this war. Then I shall try to find my son and give him a decent burial. He's one of them, you see, a Nazi. Betrayed his father, then he betrayed me."

"I am so sorry, I never .. ." His voice trailed away in embarrassment. He never knew, because he had never asked.

"Your war will probably be the end of him, Mr. Churchill. That is as it must be. But in spite of it all, he is my son. Family. I think you understand."

She was at the door. "Something has been bothering me. How did you do it, persuade Herr Halifax to give you his support?"

Churchill's shoulders stiffened in unease. "He doesn't realize it, but I lied to him," he growled defiantly. "Then I threatened him."

"Just as I thought. Very much like that other bloody man, then."

A few feet away on the other side of the door, Colville jumped in alarm. He heard something he had never heard before. Winston Churchill was roaring with laughter.

It had taken Don several days to recover from his ordeal. The water had been so overwhelming, his lungs so weak, his pain so profound.

Their fingertips had brushed, then he was gone. After a journey of many troubles their lives had been brought together, only to fly past each other once more and disappear into the darkness. Don had fought against it with every remaining crumb of resistance he could gather, had swum and searched and dived beneath the black waters of the Channel until his strength was exhausted, and even then he had carried on, until he no longer knew where the margins of sea and night were joined.

The crew of one of the search ships had discovered Don when they had almost given up hope. He was smothered with the oil through which he had swum, slumped across a hatch cover that had been ripped from one of the wrecks. Fortune had at last thrown in with him; he could so easily have been missed in the profound gloom as many others had been during previous nights. For several days he lay recovering in a bed at the military hospital in Crookham. It was where he had completed his nursing training, but he didn't recognize it; he could no longer connect with this neat world of calm and order. As the pollution was drained from his body it was replaced with a kaleidoscope of memories that chased each other around his mind, never settling, tormenting him. Every time he turned in his bed, every time he woke, every time he closed his eyes and tried to sleep, he saw his father, but he could not touch him. His body healed, but the pain didn't.

A nurse with dark, understanding eyes telephoned the vicarage, but there was no reply. Neighbours told her the place was empty, had been silent for days. So he asked the military authorities if there had been any sign of a Henry Chichester, but the clerk shook his head; things were so fouled up that even Don wasn't on their evacuation records. It would take weeks to sort out the confusion. There was no sign of his father. Time had run out on their miracle of deliverance from Dunkirk.

When at last he was able to leave the hospital, he had told the nurse, Kathy, that he was going to Dover.

"Why Dover?"

"I have nowhere else to go."

She had asked to come with him.

"As a nurse?"

"As a friend. I think you will need a friend in Dover."

They walked from the railway station, up the hill towards St-Ignatius-without-the-Walls. Strangers raised their caps as they saw his uniform and knew from the darkness around his eyes where he had come from.

It was the gentlest time of the year in Dover. The branches hung low with fresh life and a warm breeze carried with it the scent of honeysuckle and salt. But for Don it was a walk through his wasted childhood, and he found his footsteps growing heavier as he dragged behind him the regrets he knew would be with him whenever he thought of his father.

He felt very old, as though much of his life was already past, and what was left to him would be spent looking back. He was glad that Kathy's arm was linked through his in support.

"You had that time with him, on the beach," she reminded him.

But it wasn't enough, a few moments snatched from a lifetime of neglect.

"Your father would have understood," she said. That's why he was there on the beach. For you."

"I know," he replied. "I as good as killed him."

"No, that's not true. Your father knew what he was doing. Do you think for one moment that if he had to make that same choice again, he would have decided differently?"

Don didn't reply. He knew she was right, yet it didn't make the regrets disappear or the guilt go away.

"If only I could have told him .. ."

"What? That you were sorry? That you loved him? I think he knew that."

"But what would I give for the chance to have told him so."

She squeezed his arm more tightly, not as a nurse, as a friend. They were walking through the churchyard. Someone had been trimming the grass and the air was rich with its sweetness. They passed the old timbered porch his father's handwritten notices were still hanging there, with their marriage banns and brass-cleaning rosters, just as they had always been, ever since he could remember. The light was beginning to fade, the sea washing gently upon the shore, lying to him, whispering that nothing had changed since last he was here.

They walked around the laurel bush that guarded the gravel path leading to the front door of the vicarage. There was a light on in the kitchen and through the open window came the sound of singing. It was a voice Don thought he recognized, from long ago.

EPILOGUE

The day after the last troops were evacuated from Dunkirk, the weather changed. Great rollers came crashing up the beaches that would have rendered any further evacuation impossible, but by that time the soldiers of the BEF, along with 123,000 Frenchmen, had already been brought to safety. Winston Churchill had escaped, too.

Four years later almost to the day, Churchill's army was back, clambering up new French beaches alongside their American and Canadian Allies in the extraordinary re invasion of Europe known as D-Day.

Just as he had done at Dunkirk, Vice Admiral Bertram Ramsay was to play a crucial role in those events on D-Day as Commander-in-Chief of the Allied naval forces. Sadly, he did not live to see the fulfilment of his work. He was killed in an air crash in France shortly before the war's end. He is buried in France, the country he did so much to liberate.

Jock Colville stayed with Churchill, with short absences for service in his beloved R.A.F. He began as a critic and turned ardent acolyte, but he always kept a sharp eye about him and provided us with a magnificent diary of the events he witnessed at Churchill's side. Chips Channon, too, left a wonderful diary, so rich with beautifully crafted observations on the manners and morals of his time that they more than made up for the total inconsequence of his parliamentary career.

Yet there was a price to be paid for all the mistrust and disagreements that had taken place. Halifax was a man of immense experience but also of many sides Channon wrote of 'his high principles, his engaging charm and grand manner his eel-like qualities and, above all, his sublime treachery which is never deliberate'. And he was not a Churchillian. Five months later, and much against his will, he was shipped off to become Britain's ambassador to the United States. He served in that role throughout the war, and most effectively.

In the same month the American ambassador, Joe Kennedy, was also shipped back home, but there were no new glories awaiting him. Roosevelt knew of his treachery, and as soon as the presidential elections were completed, Kennedy was thrown overboard like scraps from a ship's kitchen.

Rab Butler also remained a controversial figure. Rumours of disloyalty continued to swirl around him, yet Churchill kept him in his Government. Perhaps it wasn't simply a matter of knowing your enemy, but also knowing where he could be found. Many years later, when Butler repeatedly put himself forward as a candidate for the leadership of the Conservative Party, Churchill threw his irresistible weight against him. Revenge was eaten with a long spoon.