By the time Simon rose to wind up for the Government at nine-thirty that night he had spent two and a half hours in the Chamber listening to men and women tell him to get on with exactly what he was already doing. Blandly, he backed the Foreign Secretary in his pursuit of a diplomatic solution. The House became restive, and when the clock reached ten Simon sat down to cries of “Resign” from some of his own colleagues and the more right-wing of the Labour benches.
Andrew watched carefully as Kerslake and Seymour left the Chamber. He wondered what was really going on in his old department.
He arrived home after the debate. Louise congratulated him on his speech and added, “But it didn’t evoke much of a response from Simon Kerslake.”
“He’s up to something,” said Andrew. “I only wish I was sitting in his office tonight and could find out what it is.”
When Simon arrived in that office he phoned Elizabeth and explained that he would be spending another night at the ministry.
“Some women do lose their men to the strangest mistresses,” said Elizabeth. “By the way, your younger son wants to know if you will have time to watch him play hockey in his cuppers’ match at Oxford on Saturday.”
“What’s today?”
“It’s still Thursday,” she said, “and you’re the one in charge of the nation’s defenses.”
Simon knew the rescue attempt would be all over one way or the other by lunchtime the next day. Why shouldn’t he watch his son play hockey?
“Tell him I’ll be there,” he said.
Although nothing could be achieved between midnight and six o’clock now the submarines were in place, none of the Joint Chiefs left the operations room. Radio silence was not broken once through the night as Simon tried to occupy himself with the bulging red boxes containing other pressing matters which still demanded his attention. He took advantage of the presence of the Joint Chiefs and had a hundred queries answered in minutes that would normally have taken him a month.
At midnight the first editions of the morning papers were brought to him. Simon pinned up the Telegraph’s headline on the operations board. “Kerslake’s In his Hammock till the great Armada comes.” The article demanded to know how the hero of Northern Ireland could be so indecisive while our sailors lay bound and gagged in foreign waters, and ended with the words “Captain, art thou sleeping there below?” “Not a wink,” muttered Simon. “Resign” was the single-word headline in the Daily Express. Sir John looked over the minister’s shoulder and read the opening paragraph.
“I shall never understand why anyone wants to be a politician,” he said before reporting: “We have just heard from reconnaissance in the area that both submarines Conqueror and Courageous have moved up into place.”
Simon picked up his stick from the side of his desk and left the Joint Chiefs to go to Downing Street. He took the private lift to the basement and then walked through the tunnel which runs under Whitehall direct to the Cabinet room, thus avoiding the press and any curious onlookers.
He found the Prime Minister sitting alone in the Cabinet room.
Simon went over the final plan with her in great detail, explaining that everything was ready and would be over by the time most people were having their breakfasts.
“Let me know the moment you hear anything, however trivial,” she concluded, before returning to the latest gloomy study of the economy from the Wynne Godley team, who were suggesting the pound and the dollar would be on an equal parity by 1988. “One day you may have all these problems on your shoulders,” she said.
Simon smiled and left her to walk back through the private tunnel to his office on the other side of Whitehall.
He took the lift back up to his room on the sixth floor and joined the Joint Chiefs. Although it was past midnight none of them looked tired despite their all having shared the lonely vigil with their comrades 2,000 miles away. They told stories of Suez and the Falklands, and there was frequently laughter. But it was never long before their eyes returned to the clock.
As Big Ben struck two chimes, Simon thought: four o’clock in Libya. He could visualize the men falling backward over the side of the boat and deep into the water before starting the long, slow swim toward Broadsword.
When the phone rang, breaking the eerie silence like a fire alarm, Simon picked it up to hear Charles Seymour’s voice.
“Simon,” he began, “I’ve finally got through to Gaddafi and he wants to negotiate.” Simon looked at his watch; the SBS men could only be a few hundred yards from Broadsword.
“It’s too late,” he said. “I can’t stop them now.”
“Don’t be such a bloody fool—order them to turn back. Don’t you understand we’ve won a diplomatic coup?”
“Gaddafi could negotiate for months and still end up humiliating us. No, I won’t turn back.”
“We shall see how the Prime Minister reacts to your arrogance,” said Charles and slammed down the receiver.
Simon sat at his desk and waited for the telephone to ring. He wondered if he could get away with taking the damn thing off the hook—the modern equivalent of Nelson placing the telescope to his blind eye, he considered. He needed a few minutes, but the phone rang again only seconds later. He picked it up and heard Margaret Thatcher’s unmistakable voice.
“Can you stop them if I order you to, Simon?”
He considered lying. “Yes, Prime Minister,” he said.
“But you would still like to carry it through, wouldn’t you?”
“I only need a few minutes, Prime Minister.”
“Do you understand the consequences if you fail, with Charles already claiming a diplomatic victory?”
“You would have my resignation within the hour.”
“I suspect mine would have to go with it,” she said. “In which case Charles would undoubtedly be Prime Minister by this time tomorrow.” There was a moment’s pause before she continued. “Gaddafi is on the other line and I am going to tell him that I am willing to negotiate.” Simon felt defeated. “Perhaps that will give you enough time, and let’s hope it’s Gaddafi who has to worry about resignations at breakfast.”
Simon nearly cheered.
“Do you know the hardest thing I have had to do in this entire operation?”
“No, Prime Minister.”
“When Gaddafi rang in the middle of the night, I had to pretend to be asleep so that he didn’t know I was sitting by the phone.”
He laughed.
“Good luck, Simon. I’ll phone and explain my decision to Charles.”
The clock read three-thirty.
On his return the bevy of admirals were variously clenching their fists, tapping the table, or walking around it, and Simon began to sense what the Israelis must have felt like as they waited for news from Entebbe.
The phone rang again. He knew it couldn’t be the Prime Minister this time as she was the one woman in England who never changed her mind. It was Charles Seymour.
“I want it clearly understood, Simon, that I gave you the news concerning Gaddafi’s desire to negotiate at three-twenty. That is on the record, so there will be only one minister handing in his resignation later this morning.”
“I know exactly where you stand, Charles, and I feel confident that whatever happens you’ll come through your own mound of manure smelling of roses.” He slammed down the phone just as four o’clock struck. For no fathomable reason everyone in the room stood up, but as the minutes passed again one by one they sat back down.
At seven minutes past four radio silence was broken with the five words, “Shoplifter apprehended, repeat Shoplifter apprehended.”
Simon watched the Joint Chiefs cheer like schoolchildren reacting to the winning goal at a football match. Broadsword was on the high seas in neutral waters. He sat down at his desk and asked to be put through to No. 10. The Prime Minister came on the line. “Shoplifter apprehended,” he told her.
“Congratulations, continue as agreed,” was all she said.
The next move was to be sure that all the Libyan prisoners who had been taken aboard Broadsword would be discharged at Malta and sent home unharmed. Simon waited impatiently for radio silence to be broken again, as agreed, at five o’clock.
Captain Lawrence Packard came on the line as Big Ben struck five. He gave Simon a full report on the operation: one Libyan guerilla had been killed and eleven injured. There had been no, repeat no, British deaths and only a few minor injuries sustained. The thirty-seven SBS men were back on board the submarines Conqueror and Courageous. HMS Broadsword had two engines out of action and currently resembled an Arab bazaar, but was sailing the high seas on her way home. God Save the Queen.
“Congratulations, Captain,” said Simon. He returned to Downing Street, no longer bothering to use the secret tunnel. As he limped up the road journalists with no idea of the news that was about to be announced were already gathering outside No. 10. Once again he answered none of their shouted questions. When he was shown into the Cabinet room he found Charles already there with the Prime Minister. He told them both the latest news.
“Well done, Simon,” said Mrs. Thatcher.
Charles made no comment.
It was agreed that the Prime Minister would make a statement to the House at three-thirty that afternoon.
“I must admit that my opinion of Charles Seymour has gone up,” said Elizabeth in the car on the way to Oxford to watch Peter play in his hockey match.
“What do you mean?” asked Simon.
“He’s just been interviewed on television. He said he had backed your judgment all along while having to pretend to carry out pointless negotiations. He had a very good line to the effect that it was the first time in his life that he had felt honorable about lying.”
“Smelling like roses,” Simon said sharply. Elizabeth didn’t understand her husband’s response.
He went on to tell his wife everything that had gone on between them during the last few hours.
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“And admit that the Foreign Secretary and I were quarrelling throughout the entire operation? It would only show up the Government in a bad light and give the Opposition something to latch on to.”
“I’ll never understand politics,” said Elizabeth resignedly.
It amused Simon to watch his son massacred in the mud while he stood on the touchline in the rain only hours after he had feared Gaddafi might have done the same to him. “It’s a walkover,” he told the Principal when Peter’s college were four goals down by half-time.
“Perhaps he’ll be like you and surprise us all in the second half,” came back the reply.
At eight o’clock on the following Saturday morning Simon sat in his office and heard the news that Broadsword had all engines on full speed and was expected to reach Portsmouth by three o’clock, exactly one week after his son had lost his college match eight-nil: they hadn’t had a good second half. Simon had tried to console his downcast son but it didn’t help that he had been the goalkeeper.
He was smiling when his secretary interrupted his thoughts to remind him that he was due in Portsmouth in an hour. As Simon reached the door the phone rang. “Explain to whoever it is I’m already late,” he said.
His secretary replied, “I don’t think I can, sir.”
Simon turned round, puzzled. “Who is it?” he asked.
“Her Majesty the Queen.”
Simon returned to his desk, picked up the receiver, and listened to the sovereign. When she had finished Simon thanked her and said he would pass on her message to Captain Packard as soon as he reached Portsmouth. During the flight down Simon looked out of the helicopter and stared at a traffic jam that stretched from the coast to London with people who were going to welcome Broadsword home. The helicopter landed an hour later.
The Secretary of State for Defense stood on the pier and was able to pick out the destroyer through a pair of binoculars. She was about an hour away but was already so surrounded by a flotilla of small craft that it was hard to identify her.
Sir John told him that Captain Packard had signaled to ask if the Secretary of State wished to join him on the bridge as they sailed into port. “No, thank you,” said Simon. “It’s his day, not mine.”
“Good thing the Foreign Secretary isn’t with us,” said Sir John. A squad of Tornadoes flew over, drowning Simon’s reply. As Broadsword sailed into port, the ship’s company were all on deck standing to attention in full dress uniform. The ship itself shone like a Rolls-Royce that had just come off the production line.
By the time the captain descended the gangplank a crowd of some 500,000 were cheering so loudly that Simon could not hear himself speak. Captain Packard saluted as the Secretary of State leaned forward and whispered the Queen’s message in his ear:
“Welcome home, Rear-Admiral Sir Lawrence Packard.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
THE BROADSWORD FACTOR remained in the memories of the electorate for a far shorter time than had the Falklands victory and the Conservative cause was not helped by the breakdown in Geneva of the disarmament talks between Reagan, Gorbachev, and Thatcher.
The Russians put the blame for the breakdown on Mrs. Thatcher’s “aggressive stance” over Broadsword after they had backed her for a diplomatic solution at the UN. Within six months the Conservative lead in the opinion polls had dropped to three percent.
“The truth is,” noted Raymond at a Shadow Cabinet meeting, “Mrs. Thatcher has had nearly eight years at No. 10 and no Prime Minister has served two full terms in succession—let alone three—since Lord Liverpool in 1812.”
At that time of the year when referees leave the field to be replaced by umpires Raymond watched his predictions become history. Once the Christmas recess had ended he felt sure the Prime Minister would go to the country in late May or some time in June rather than face another winter. When the Conservatives held on to the marginal seat in Birmingham and fared better than expected at the local elections in May no one believed the Prime Minister would delay the announcement much longer.
Margaret Thatcher seemed to care nothing for Lord Liverpool or historical precedent, because she called an election for late June, believing that the month that had been a winner for her in the past would prove to be good for her again.
“It’s time to let the nation choose who is to govern for the next five years,” she declared on “Panorama.”
“Of course, it’s got nothing to do with the fact she’s regained a slight lead in the opinion polls,” said Joyce tartly.
“A lead that could well disappear during the next few weeks,” Raymond added.
He returned to Yorkshire for only three days of the campaign. As one of the party’s leading spokesmen he had to travel around the country addressing meeting after meeting in marginal seats. Many journalists went as far as to suggest that were Raymond leading the party they would be in a far stronger position to win the election. On the few occasions he was back in Leeds he enjoyed the electioneering and felt completely relaxed with his constituents for the first time in his life. He also felt his age when he discovered that the new Tory candidate for Leeds North had been born in 1964, the year he had first entered Parliament. When they met the only insult Raymond suffered at his young rival’s hands was being called “sir.”
“Please call me by my Christian name,” said Raymond.
“Raymond—” began the young man.
“No, Ray will do just fine.”
Charles and Simon also saw little of their constituencies as they too toured the marginal seats, adding more and more to their schedules as the polling day became closer. Halfway through the campaign the Conservatives mounted a massive attack on the Alliance, as opinion polls were continuing to show that they were making considerable inroads into the Conservative vote, while traditional Labour supporters were returning to their old allegiance.
Andrew had to remain in Edinburgh for the entire campaign, to face Frank Boyle once again. But this time, as Stuart
Gray informed the constituents of Edinburgh Carlton through his columns in the Scotsman. it was a Frank Boyle without teeth. Andrew felt what was left of those teeth a few times during the final three weeks but at least the Royal Bank of Scotland did not find it necessary to part with a second golden sovereign in their 300-year history. Andrew retained his seat by over 2,000 votes, to be returned to Parliament for the eighth time. Louise claimed that her husband’s majority were the 2,000 people who had fallen in love with the thirteen-year-old coltish Clarissa, who was already fulfilling her father’s prophecy as gauche fifteen-year-old Scots blushed in her presence.
The final result of the election did not become clear until four o’clock on the Friday afternoon as several recounts took place up and down the country.
“It will be a hung Parliament,” David Dimbleby told the viewers tuned into the BBC “Election Special” program that afternoon. He repeated the detailed figures for those people still returning from work:
Conservative 313
Labour 285
Liberal/SDP Alliance 31
Irish/Ulster Unionist 17
Speaker and others 4
Dimbleby went on to point out that there was no necessity for Mrs. Thatcher to resign as she was still the leader of the largest party in the Commons. But one thing was apparent, the SDP might well hold the balance at the next election.
The Prime Minister made very few changes to her front-bench team as she clearly wished to leave an impression of unity despite her small majority. The press dubbed it “The cosmetic Cabinet.” Charles moved to the Home Office while Simon became Foreign Secretary.
Everyone at Westminster was thankful when a few weeks later Parliament broke up for the summer recess and politicians returned home for a rest.
That rest was to last a complete week before Tony Benn rolled a thundercloud across the clear blue summer sky by announcing he would contest the leadership of the Labour party at the October conference.