WC02 - Never Surrender (9 page)

"Not one of us," Bracken had warned, whispering in Churchill's ear.

"Chips? Of course he is. Chips is everyone's," Churchill had replied gaily. "Don't worry about him. It's the other buggers we have to watch out for." And Churchill had forced his way through to the side of Neville Chamberlain, taking his arm, smiling, ensuring that they were seen together and offering him an ostentatious display of gratitude and warmth.

Afterwards he had noted Bracken's quizzical eye. "That's the way it shall be, Brendan, both publicly and in private, for as long as is required. I'm haunted by enough damned ghosts, I've no need of more."

They strode away, out of earshot and hidden behind a fog of cigar smoke. "Brendan, I have a task of some delicacy for you. I am being forced to fight on too many fronts. I have nominated the most senior Ministers in my Government, now I want your help in selecting the great mass of the remainder. I need to get on with the other war."

"Magnificent. I always enjoy a little vengeance."

"You will start this evening. You will do it with David Margesson."

"Margesson? Winston, you've gone mad .. ."

David Margesson was a name no one took lightly. He had been Neville Chamberlain's Chief Whip, his immensely powerful organizer of the parliamentary party. He had known the details of every plot and piece of parliamentary wickedness during the last decade, largely because he had initiated most of them, and none of his plots had been more vicious than that against Churchill himself.

"Winston, barely twelve months ago Margesson was on the point of getting you deselected. Thrown out of the party. He tried to destroy your whole life he hates you! The only reason you're here today is because the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia the night before the de selection meeting. God knows, but Adolf Hitler's done more for your career than bloody Margesson! He's a comprehensive bastard!"

"Ah, but a most effective one. Which is why you will sit down with him and reshuffle the rest of my government, allowing as many as possible of the other bastards to remain."

"I am lost," Bracken gasped, his mind exhausted.

"Come on, Brendan, it's your own idea: Mark Antony, embracing the conspirators in order to give himself enough time."

"For what?"

Churchill stopped, grabbed the other man's sleeve and spun him round until he was staring directly into his eyes.

To survive! If we rock this boat too violently, it will sink. It may be overloaded with men not to our hearts, but if we are to let them go, slip them over the side, it had best be done as quietly as possible and at night. So mark out the troublemakers. Give them new jobs, different jobs, impossible jobs, but always some job; never forget that their love of office any office is stronger than their loathing for me. Keep them busy with the war against Hitler; give them not a moment for their war against me." Churchill was panting with emotion, struggling to keep his breath. "And if we are to go down in flames, then they too shall shed tears, share the toil, be drowned in sweat. But if we are to survive, it can only be together."

So they had gathered in the Admiralty later that evening, Bracken and Margesson in one room while Churchill buried himself with his papers and maps in the inner sanctum. Bracken and the Chief Whip had bickered and debated, weighing dubious merits against more certain sins, moving from one to the next, pricking a few names, moving others to more minor posts, getting Colville to telephone the news through to the victims while they themselves congratulated the victors. In the end two-thirds of the existing members of the Government were reappointed, only twelve senior offices went to newcomers. Chamberlain remained prominent on the poop deck while Margesson continued in service as the master-at-arms.

But even as they worked, the boat was to be rocked far more brutally than ever they imagined.

Churchill heard it first, on the radio, from an American, a respected CBS correspondent named William Shirer who was based in Berlin. His broadcasts were inevitably filtered through the coarse gauze of the German Propaganda

Ministry, but what squeezed past the censors was often useful, helping to know the enemy.

Good evening. This is Berlin .. .

The voice was flat, reedy, its tones stripped of emotional emphasis as it wowed and fluttered its way through the ether. Churchill tapped a dial; it made little difference. But the message did.

Liege fallen! German land forces break through and establish contact with air-force troops near Rotterdam! Those were the astounding headlines in extra editions of the Berlin papers that came out about five, our time, this afternoon.

"Colville. Mr. Colville!" Churchill first muttered, then roared. There was a sudden scrabbling in the outer office.

Today was a holiday in the capital Whit Monday and there were large crowds strolling in the streets. They bought up the extras like hot cakes. The announcement by the German High Command on the fourth day of the big drive that the citadel of Liege had been captured, and that German well, the Germans call them "speed troops " had broken through the whole southern part of Holland and made contact with the air-force troops who 've been fighting since the first day in and around Rotterdam on the west coast, caught almost everyone by surprise. Even German military circles seemed a bit surprised. They admitted that the breakthrough to Rotterdam, as one put it, came somewhat sooner than expected .. .

Colville was standing aghast on the other side of the desk. None of this had been mentioned in the night's situation briefing. To be sure, the Dutch had been talking of 'modifications' and 'confusion' in the military position, but this .. . "Get the Chiefs of Staff back here. Every man jack of 'em. And find out whether m'Lord Halifax is in the land of the living. If he's not, drag him out of bed. Tell him there's a war on!"

FOUR

Tuesday 14 May. The Reverend Chichester rose before dawn, turning his back on his bed. Sleep had been elusive and, when at last it had come, a river of troubles had run through his dreams, destroying his peace and reminding him of so many unanswered prayers. It had been his birthday on the previous day, his fifty-second, a time for reflection, although it had passed unnoticed by anybody else, apart from a card from his sister. Nothing from Donald.

Everything in his mind kept moving in circles and coming back to the same point. Donald. Even Jennie stared back at him in reproach from the mantelpiece, as if to say there should have been another photograph of their son alongside her. But he hadn't any recent photos of Don.

The vicarage seemed empty, the hallway too tidy; the kitchen had an unaccustomed echo; even the driveway taunted him. Not so long ago Don's motorbike, an AJS, had stood there on the gravel, leaning drunkenly and leaking oil. It was an ancient machine and Don had spent many hours repairing it, not always successfully. The Reverend Chichester hated motorbikes. As a young man he'd almost killed himself on one and he was afraid that Don would do the same. So he had objected to the bike. He was trying to protect his son, but instead of a discussion about caring it had been reduced to a shouting match about filthy sinks and oily clothes. Ridiculous. Pointless. Splinters in the eye, for in spite of Don's offensive language, he knew it was his fault. It seemed he would say anything rather than admit to his son that he loved him.

The previous evening he had returned to the vicarage to discover that his occasional gardener had cleaned up the soiled gravel. It was in pristine condition, no trace of the bike. Every fragment of Don's memory was being leached from his life, leaving them to stumble around his dreams.

He began to prepare another solitary breakfast, his newspaper propped up above the sink. Across the Channel that lay beyond his kitchen window, a new war was raging. He could see and hear nothing of it, there was little to witness apart from the calm of the sea and the outline of Calais beginning to emerge from its morning veil, but the headlines gave him the story of a Total War' in which the "R.A.F had triumphed'. One hundred and fifty enemy machines shot down. Good news, great news, God's work. Set out in The Times.

Yet, as seemed increasingly to be His habit, God moved in ways that left mysteries in their wake. As the vicar pushed aside his breakfast plate, the same newspaper announced that the Belgian army was falling back, the Dutch, too. Yet only yesterday it had announced that the BEF was sweeping forward. Backwards, forwards this was unlike any war the Reverend Chichester knew.

The Times assured him that the Belgians and Dutch were withdrawing 'without heavy casualties'.

Which puzzled the Reverend Chichester. For why, in God's name, if they had suffered no heavy casualties, were they moving back?

Where had they gone, those people who only days before had been smiling, blowing kisses and shouting their encouragement as the 6th had made its way to the front? Now, on the way back, there was no greeting, no warmth, nothing but tired eyes that spoke of concern and even contempt.

Don's unit were withdrawing to a suburb of Brussels called Boitsfort in a tight convoy consisting of fifty ambulances, water trucks, troop-carriers and other vehicles. A few refugees had begun to appear on the road in front of them with their cars and overladen carts. Progress began to slow, and a sense of fading order crept up on them. The 6th had seen no direct combat yet, but planes had begun to appear overhead, high in the clear sky, and they came from the east. They must have seen the convoy; you couldn't hide an entire field unit, not with all their bright red crosses painted on the roofs.

They passed a single bomb crater at the side of the road. A dead horse lay beside it, the carcass still smouldering, its stench sweet: the first casualty of Don's war. And moments later there were others, Belgian soldiers, a group of them at the side of the road, abandoned and bleeding. Some were badly injured from shrapnel wounds. They kept gesticulating towards the sky, but otherwise there was little sense to be had from them in their strange language, and no one seemed inclined to delay in order to discover more. The wounded were loaded into the back of the ambulances and other vehicles. First blood. Belgian blood.

Yet, that evening, Boitsfort displayed the air of a prosperous suburb whose mind was fixed on moving gently into the embrace of nothing more threatening than a glorious summer. The gardens were full of flowers, the restaurants and cafes crowded, the young women gay, even while in the back of Don's vehicle a soldier was bleeding silently upon the floor. Someone mentioned they were passing near the battlefield of Waterloo.

The 6th drew up in front of an imposing building, the Hotel Haute Maison. Inside the hotel a dinner-dance was in progress. Most of the male dancers were Belgian officers in freshly pressed uniforms, with women on their arms and champagne at their tables. As the British marched in bearing the bloodied casualties, a woman screamed, but in a moment the surprise was overtaken by a hurried calm. A Belgian officer began issuing orders to the hotel staff, the tables were cleared, the women ushered out, the band dismissed. The maitre d' passed calmly from table to table, extinguishing candles, removing bottles, everything else being swept up in the starched linen tablecloths so that it took only moments for the tables to be laid bare. The two largest of these were then positioned beneath the chandeliers, their tops scrubbed with disinfectant and transformed into operating tables. The walking wounded slumped into the dining chairs to wait their turn, while those who were beyond helping themselves were carried in on stretchers that were already stained beyond cleansing. The maitre d' brought in armfuls of clean towels and napkins to use as bandages, tears pouring silently down his cheeks. A priest arrived.

There was little time, often not enough time for the anaesthetic to take effect. More casualties arrived throughout the night, some civilian, all Belgian. The surgeons did whatever they could; often it was not enough. The dead were laid out in the ballroom.

War had at last caught up with Don.

Then, as the sun rose, the 6th were given fresh instructions. New orders. Fall back. Again.

"How is it possible? How can it be that three armies have fallen back because of the approach of a mere handful of Nazi tanks?"

Churchill hunched over the map spread before him on the Cabinet table and held it down with his clenched fists. For many long moments he stood like stone as he studied what lay before him, refusing to believe. All day long he had been pacing up and down as reports flooded in of ever-spreading disaster, his head bent forward as though he intended to butt his way towards victory, but no matter how furiously he paced he couldn't prevent disaster from catching up with him. The Dutch had surrendered, laid down their arms, given up. The Maginot Line was broken: the French were falling back, the Belgians with them, while the Germans had pushed beyond Sedan and were now halfway to the Channel. Luftwaffe bombers were now at airfields no more than thirty minutes' flying time from the English coast. That morning he had been shaken awake by a telephone call from the French Prime Minister Reynaud. "All is lost," he had said in English. The road to Paris is open. We have been defeated."

And all through the day the calamities had continued.

"Impossible!" Churchill's fists pounded the table and he exploded back into life. He turned to his right, to where Newall, Chief of the Air Staff, was sitting. "How many planes? How many planes do we have in France?"

"Prime Minister, we had four hundred and seventy-four. I regret to tell you that as of this morning we had barely two hundred left still operational."

"In five days? We have lost more than half our strength in five days?" Churchill gasped.

"The Germans have lost a great many more machines," the Air Marshal responded sharply. "But we are outnumbered. I've heard of three Hurricanes taking on flights of thirty or forty enemy planes. They fight magnificently, but the French fuel is poor, their landing fields a disgrace and their radio communications nonexistent. This morning we attacked the pontoon bridges around Sedan. We sent in nearly eighty planes. Thirty-seven of them failed to return." He glared defiantly at Churchill through exhausted eyes. "If the R.A.F is in peril it is not through want of courage. Or of sacrifice, Prime Minister."