Winston’s War (44 page)

He pushed his empty glass across to Mac, who noticed with some astonishment that his own glass was also empty. He rose and refilled them both.

Burgess made even less sense after that, except to insist that Mac should forgive both his drunkenness and the intrusion upon Mac's private life. “Keep in touch, Mac, keep in touch.” And Mac promised he would. As he left the pub and walked slightly unsteadily down the cobbled mews, he wondered why he had agreed to that. After all, he was so different from Burgess. He didn't believe in country—he had no country, and it spared him the torment that open-eyed patriotism inflicted upon Burgess. Neither did he believe in conscience. Hell, look what conscience did to
goy tzedek
—righteous gentiles like Burgess. And he had no doubt that, deep down, Burgess was righteous—or believed himself to be righteous. That's why he hurt so much. He was falling to pieces, swept away in alcohol and self-abuse, while Mac had always been brought up to confront problems in a different way. He remembered his
uncle, Moshe, the cobbler, a huge man with delicate fingers and a ready grin. “You behaves, you be good, little Yosef Ya'akov,” he had bellowed one day when Mac had returned from the marketplace bearing a black eye inflicted by a policeman's fist, “but if you finds yourself in troubles with the law, this is what you do. First you fast. You fasts till it hurts, 'cause nothing in this life comes without a little pain, you hear? Then you prays to God. You recites your Psalms, you call upon the Almighty. And if your shovel still full of shits—well. That's the time you bribes the
mamzer
magistrate.” During his years in the camps, Mac had learned to short-circuit the system. He'd gone straight to bribery. Several times it had saved his life, and his conscience had disappeared with the sun.

So no country, no conscience. Which left only…well, Carol, that first time. And now Peter and Lindy and things that had begun to matter to him. He cared. He hated caring, it complicated his life, but he had fought that battle and knew that he'd lost. He had begun to feel again. And remember things, like his roots, and Uncle Moshe, and that bloody policeman in the marketplace. And the ARP warden. Half a lifetime later and half a continent away, so little had changed. There were still those who enjoyed giving him a good kicking, just for the hell of it. And now, because he belonged, had a home, it had begun to hurt. For the first time since he had been marched out of his school playground in Wadowice, Mac was truly afraid. He had something to lose. So if Burgess wanted to kick back, he could do some kicking for Mac, too, and for Carol and Peter and Lindy. So Mac would do as Burgess asked and keep in touch—after all, apart from a hangover, what had he got to lose?

October 1939.

T
urn it up, dammit—up, up, up. Can't hear a bloody thing.”

Beaverbrook's voice echoed around the marble walls of the bathroom before erupting through the open door into the outer room, and anxious fingers scrabbled at the dials of the wireless set. “Not that there'll be any damn thing worth listening to, just Winston's usual windbagging,” the Canadian added.

“It's starting,” a discomfited and evidently junior voice announced.

This observation was followed by a series of gruntings from within the bathroom that sent a ripple of embarrassment amongst the four men gathered around the desk outside. They were all over-paid executives, and one of the functions they were over-paid to endure was their boss conducting meetings from the John. Beaverbrook liked to shock, keep men guessing, and usually he succeeded. The men continued to shuffle uneasily until the voice of Churchill, sibilant, slightly crackling and lacking in bass but nevertheless totally distinctive in its lilting tones, at last gave them merciful distraction.

“
The British Empire and the French Republic,”
the First Lord began, “
have been at war with Nazi Germany for a month tonight. We have not yet come at all to the severity of fighting which is to be expected, but three important things have happened. First, Poland has been again overrun by two of the Great Powers which held her in bondage for a hundred and fifty years but were unable to quench the spirit of the Polish nation. The heroic defense of Warsaw shows that the soul of Poland is indestructible, and that she will rise again—like a rock.
”

Ungracious noises emerged once more from the bathroom, followed by a flushing of water.

“
What is the second event of this first month?”
Churchill's voice continued. “
It is, of course, the assertion of the power of Russia. Russia has pursued a cold policy of self-interest. We could have wished that the Russian armies should be standing on their present line as the friends and allies of Poland, instead of as invaders. But that Russian armies should stand on this line was clearly necessary for the safety of Russia against the Nazi menace…
”

“God's name, Winston, wake up! The Russians are there 'cause they're two-faced goddamn Communists.” A diminutive figure now followed the voice out of the bathroom door. The First Baron Beaverbrook emerged, slipping his braces back over his shoulders. The flies of his trousers remained unfastened and flapped like sails in a squall.

“I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia…”

“Raping the rich!” snapped Beaverbrook, throwing himself into his chair behind the desk and plucking a cigar from an elaborate humidor.

“
It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma…
”

“Hey, cute phrase, Winnie, grant you that.”

“
But perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest. It cannot be in accordance with the interests or the safety of Russia that Nazi Germany should plant itself upon the shores of the Black Sea, or that it should overrun the Balkan States and subjugate the
Slavonic peoples of southeastern Europe. That would be contrary to the historic life-interests of Russia. But here these interests of Russia fall into the same channel as the interests of Britain and France…
”

“You have got to be kidding!”

“
Through the fog of confusion and uncertainty, we may discern quite plainly the continuity of interests which exists between England, France and Russia…
”

“Damn his eyes. The Bolsheviks are only just through screwing the Polacks and he wants to bend over for the bastards. Enough!” Beaverbrook exclaimed. He leaned across and switched off the wireless.

“Overblown nonsense,” one of those on the other side of the desk laughed, trying hard to sound confident. Meetings in Beaverbrook's sumptuous art-deco office in the
Express
building often had the effect of transforming grown men into nervous teenagers.

Beaverbrook turned on him. “Nonsense, is it?”

“Jumping into bed with Joe Stalin? It's just too fantastic.”

“Is it? Dunno about that. For the first time in his entire mess-strewn life old Winnie might be right. Do a deal with the Russians and this whole war thing might just turn around.”

“But we hate the Russians,” another voice suggested diffidently.

“Course we hate the bloody Russians. Not sure I like you too much, either, but that don't stop you working for me.”

The voice retired hurt.

“But that's not the issue for today—which is not war, so much as peace,” Beaverbrook continued. “Hitler's offered an end to it all. Got what he wants in Poland, now says he wants to be a good boy again and will never darken our door. What do you gentlemen think? What does the
Express
think?” He was testing them. He enjoyed acting the inquisitor, probing. He had so very few fixed views himself that he enjoyed scouring for fresh ones, hoping to bump into something he liked.

“You had lunch with Horace Wilson today—what does he think?” inquired Heale, the editor, who was standing a little apart from the rest, sucking at a large briar pipe and toying thoughtfully with an antique globe.

Beaverbrook's boyish eyes sparkled, delighted that at last someone else was playing the game. “Simple. Poland is lost. So if we continue the war, we won't be saving Poland. It can be nothing other than a war of retaliation and of revenge which will result in the pointless slaughter of thousands of innocent Englishmen.” He didn't say so, but the inflection in his voice made it clear he was quoting directly.

“And the Prime Minister?”

“Since when did Horace allow as much as a cigarette paper between himself and the PM?”

“So—Churchill wants war. While Chamberlain doesn't. An unfortunate dilemma.”

“And the
Express
—what does the
Express
want?” Beaverbrook demanded, the eyes now more serious, casting across the editor.

Heale paused before replying. “We've been pretty consistent these last couple of years. Kept to our creed.
Blessed are the peacemakers.
Why should we change now?” It was a subtle tactic, turning to the scriptures. Beaverbrook was an industrial magnate and former Cabinet Minister from the First War, a man of extraordinary ruthlessness who liked to suggest he'd be happy to do a deal with the Devil so long as he was offered a percentage of the approach road to Hell, but he was also many other things, including being the son of a Presbyterian minister from middle-Canada. He kept a Bible on his desk and another on the glass shelf inside his private/public bathroom, and any opinion that was served to him wrapped in a biblical context would never be treated with scorn.

“Yeah, sure—
blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God.
But God also said, and I think rightly"—he
paused, waiting for a reaction, running his hand through his untidy mop of thinning hair—"Oh, for pity's sake, you guys, it's a joke, a bloody joke…”

They all looked at each other, wondering if it was too late to laugh.

“But God also said—something like this. Ezekiel, I think…”
In the corner, Heale smiled to himself. Beaverbrook had a memory like a coal dredger that would dig up a biblical quote for almost any occasion, and usually word-perfect. All it required was an audience.

“
Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I will bring upon you Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, a King of Kings! From the north, with horses and with chariots, and with horsemen, and companies, and much people. Who shall slay thy daughters in the field.
” The smoldering tip of his cigar was thrust forward like a bayonet. “
And make a fort against thee, and lift up the buckler against thee. And he shall set engines of war against thy walls, and with his axes he shall break down thy towers!
Some crap like that, anyway. So what do you think? Do we stay on our knees in praise of peacemakers? Or would you gentlemen prefer we find a warlord to slay a few virgins?”

“Keep the virgins,” one man offered. “We'll need them later. And Churchill as the King of Kings? I scarcely think so.”

“The rationing of newsprint is killing us,” another executive ventured. “Advertising shot to hell. We'll never make any money while the war carries on.”

“Excellent point—excellent,” the magnate agreed. “Unless, that is, we stir up a bit of controversy. Use a few gutsy headlines to sell the paper.”

“The war's not controversy enough?” a voice asked incredulously.

“War? What bloody war? You seen the latest communiqué? Poland's dead and gone and it's all quiet on the Western Front—again. Like watching grass grow.”

“What sort of controversy were you thinking of?” Heale inquired.

Beaverbrook smoothed his lips around the end of his cigar. It was usually a sign he was just about to pull the pin from a grenade. “Well, what do you think about jumping into bed with Winston?”

“Over Chamberlain's dead body!”

“Precisely my point. Get a good few headlines out of a 'Chamberlain-must-go' campaign.”

“But the
Express
has always been an appeasement paper. In Chamberlain's corner.”

“Except he's lost the plot. He wants peace, but can't say so because he knows that Jack and Jill in the street won't have it. Hitler's stuck his finger up their collective arse once too often. If Chamberlain announces he wants to go to Munich again to sign another peace deal, chances are his plane'll be shot down by our own guns.”

“But Hitler's serious. What did he say he wanted the other day?” An executive began scrabbling round for a two-day-old newspaper and quoted from its front page. “
…the liquidation of the present war between Germany on the one hand and Great Britain on the other.
That's what he's proposing. Sounds to me like the best offer we're going to get.”

“OK, Hitler wants peace, Chamberlain wants peace. Let's assume Jesus Christ still wants peace and so, I suspect, does the Dalai Lama. And we want peace. But our readers, God love 'em, the men and women who keep us in martinis and mistresses, they in their abiding wisdom don't want peace. They're mad as hell. Want us to go and beat the crap out of the Krauts. So how do we bring them around to some sort of peace deal?”

He had set them a test. It was important they should respond. Ideas began to stumble forth, then gathered pace. Letters from irate correspondents already weary with war, they suggested. Lurid columns about how many businesses were about to go
bust, how children might soon be reduced to begging in the street, how the blackout had turned roads into a death trap. How conscription was already wrenching families apart, how separation was undermining both public morale and private morality. And how the traditional pleasures of women would be wiped away by rationing, how they were being forced from the kitchen and into the factories, making bullets instead of babies. And perhaps, they suggested, the paper should carry interviews with the blind, the halt, the lame, the heroes and victims of the last war, the war that should have ended all wars…