Tonight I talked to six British prisoners, all that were left of a whole company. They said they were simply overwhelmed by dive-bombers and tanks.
"What about your own bombers and tanks?" I asked.
"Didn't see any," they answered.
The tyres offered a dignified protest as they drew to a halt on the gravel inner courtyard of the Palace. The King's assistant private secretary, Lascelles, was there to greet him.
"A splendid day, Prime Minister."
"My dear Alan."
Lascelles winced. He hated his Christian name and was called "Tommy' by everyone well, almost everyone. Lascelles knew the slight was deliberate.
"His Majesty was hoping you wouldn't mind if the audience took place on the terrace since it is a little later than he was expecting."
Ah, the sharpened barb of complaint. Tray offer my profound apologies to His Majesty for my delayed arrival. The distractions of the Western Front. Again."
Once more the words carried meaning that most eavesdroppers might not have understood. The two men loathed each other; their dislike was deep and lingering. There had been bad blood between them for many years in fact since the last war, when Lascelles had accused Churchill, newly returned from the trenches, of using his parliamentary duties as an excuse to 'lay aside the King's uniform the moment it becomes unpleasantly stiff with mud'. Unforgivable, and unforgiven.
They walked in silence.
The King was pacing the terrace, impatient, bent forward, his hands behind his back, a cigarette between his lips. Nearby his wife was seated beneath a parasol protecting a pot of tea.
"Ah, Winston, delighted you're here. Do you mind? I've asked my wife to join us. I thought we might discuss a little family business."
"Your Majesties," Churchill greeted them, raising his hat and bowing low.
"Have some tea," George instructed.
"Don't be silly, dear," the Queen protested as Churchill took a seat beside them. "The tea's cold. Anyway, after the day he's had, Mr. Churchill will want something a little stronger than tea."
"And so, I believe, will we all," the King agreed. A servant was sent scurrying.
"I'm so grateful, Winston. I know how ferociously occupied your time is. And I don't wish to disturb you unnecessarily. You didn't mind me writing to you about Beaverbrook, did you?"
Ah, more code. The King had written to Churchill expressing
his profound reservations about Beaverbrook's proposed appointment and asking Churchill to reconsider. Churchill had ignored him and gone ahead regardless.
"I understand your position, of course," the King continued. "The exigencies of office. But I was hoping we might find a compromise on the other matter."
"The other matter, sir?"
"Bracken. It really is entirely inappropriate would break all the precedents to appoint him to the Privy Council; he's not held any major office of state, indeed he hasn't held any office whatsoever. You see the problem, I'm sure."
The response began with a form of strained growl, as if as much was being stifled as was being said.
"Sir! The reason Mr. Bracken has held no office is because he was a man who chose to come with me into the wilderness rather than kowtow to the demands of appeasers and brutish political enforcers. He stayed with me when all others had fled stuck with his conscience while others sold theirs cheap. Is he now to suffer still further punishment for remaining steadfast? Is loyalty to become a sin? I pray, sir, that at this terrible hour in our fortunes, when the burden of disaster has been thrust fully upon my shoulders, it is not too much to expect a little help!"
The King had been expecting compliance, or at least conciliation. Instead he had got a cavalry charge. It was fortunate that the drinks arrived, providing a pause for both men to regroup.
"You mentioned a family matter, sir," Churchill began again, anxious to lead the conversation down more fertile paths. It was yet another of his good intentions that was to die a lonely death that day. The King's shoulders stiffened.
"Yes, Prime Minister. I understand you wrote to the Kaiser. Offered him asylum. You asked him to come and live here.
Did you not think of consulting me before you wrote to a member of my family?"
"Sir, the hour was pressing. If it were to be done it had to be done then, or not at all."
"But he's my cousin. Don't I have a say in this?"
"In normal circumstances .. . but you will appreciate, sir, that the circumstances are far from'
"It's a matter of not just the common courtesies but also the constitutional proprieties of it all. I am head of state. He is'
"A man who is no longer head of state. And a man whom many regard as no better than a war criminal. It would have been entirely inappropriate if any communication with him had come from you."
"I understand it was a f-failure. He showed no interest in the .. . p-proposition. Dismissed it out of hand."
"Yes, it proved to be a terrible idea, but these things happen. And my presumption has protected you and the Crown from any criticism which might erupt from that failure. As for me, sir, my back is broad."
It sounded like a silly boast from a man whose patience had been rubbed bare. And, under pressure, George's stammer was back. Ridiculous masculine nonsense.
"Gentlemen," Elizabeth intervened, 'what's done is done. There is nothing to be gained from history."
Churchill thought there was rather a significant amount to be gained from history, particularly if you happened to be a hereditary monarch, but he appreciated the Queen's effort to pour what he later described to Bracken as 'whisky upon troubled water'. She was no enthusiast for Churchill he had offended her greatly by his posturing during the abdication crisis but she was a most practical woman and determined above all to protect her husband. "Mr. Churchill, you will forgive us, I hope, but the strain of recent weeks affects us all."
"My apologies to you both if I spoke out of turn, ma'am. You know there is no man in the kingdom more loyal to the Crown."
"Apologies have no place here, Mr. Churchill," the Queen continued, 'and never must between us. If we differ, let it be in private, and for the outside world let us show nothing but one face and one cause."
Churchill blew his nose. "That was so beautifully put, ma'am. I feel like Raleigh, ready to cast myself at the feet of his Queen."
"Thank you," she smiled, marvelling and not for the first time at this outrageous Victorian charmer. "But there is something else. The children. Friends have said we should consider sending the girls away, perhaps to Canada."
Tears welled in Churchill's eyes. His reply came slowly, every word weighed.
"That, Your Majesties, would not be possible."
Once again the King bristled, but Elizabeth reached for his hand to still him. This was not a time for mannish posturing; it was not a joust, nor any form of confrontation not yet, at least.
"Please try to understand," Churchill continued, shaking his head. "You are symbols in much the same way as the old Kaiser is a symbol. You have no choice in the matter, you were born to it just as the little princesses have been born to their role. And the task of the Royal Family at this moment is to act as a banner around which others might rally, to provide a beacon of light and resistance that will stretch into the farthest corners of our land. The road that lies ahead of us will be long and arduous, filled with much grief, and it may not be successful. But there is still hope.
And on that flame of hope may depend our nation's survival. If you or the little princesses were to leave the country at this point, then that flame would be extinguished and we would lose everything. Me, my life; you, your crown for they would most surely bring back your brother. And England, our England, that island of Nelson and Shakespeare, of Empire, of decency and brotherhood, would be nothing but a sad and distant dream." His tears were flowing freely now.
"You are saying I have no say over the fate of my own d-daughters?" George persisted. "The girls are to stay here -for the sake of appeara
nce?"
"For the chance of deliverance."
"Sounds like one hell of a gamble, Winston."
"It is."
It was now the turn of the King to take the Queen's hand. He stared into her eyes for reassurance before returning to his Prime Minister, the stammer gone.
"I was not born to this job. I inherited it by circumstance and I find its constraints very heavy. Wearing the crown is a duty I don't always enjoy or even understand, but it is a duty I must do. I think I shall need your help, Winston, if I am to do it well."
SEVEN
As an alliance, it didn't have much to say for itself. Don had given the Frenchman the last of his morphine. The airman had struggled, muttered and then passed out as they drove onward through the darkness, guided only by moonlight, not knowing which direction might be safe. Don was alarmed at the prospect of running into the advancing Germans, but he was still more afraid of doing nothing and allowing himself to be overwhelmed by the panic and confusion he felt inside. His friends were dead, his unit obliterated, and war for Don was no longer a matter of picking up the pieces but of a struggle for his own survival. He had to do something. So he drove.
When the airman came round almost an hour later and asked where they were, Don had to admit he was totally lost. The Frenchman offered nothing more than a withering look and waved him on.
Towards dawn they came upon a town guarding the confluence of several waterways. A sign said it was called Aire. On its outskirts they stopped a passing bicyclist, with whom the Frenchman exchanged hurried words before directing Don through a series of back streets until they drew up outside a large house bearing a doctor's plate. Sustained banging on the door woke him, and after a heated exchange in unintelligibly rapid French, the ankle was inspected and more morphine administered, but the doctor decided it was no more than a serious strain and bound it tightly.
As soon as the doctor had finished his work, another forceful discussion took place.
"He does not want us here," the Frenchman explained. "Some German units have been reported nearby. He says the war is coming too close. And it appears he has a weak heart." There was no disguising the contempt.
"So where do we go?"
"To the war."
"But your ankle .. ."
"My ankle will heal better in a French bed than in a German prison bunk. Anyway, you saw what happened to your friends. It doesn't look as if the Germans are much interested in taking prisoners."
It was a point that had not escaped Don.
The Frenchman lit a foul-smelling cigarette while he fought the pain and reassembled his thoughts. "The doctor says the Germans are in Abbeville, so we cannot move south. We must go north. Forty miles. To Dunkirk, Calais, Boulogne, perhaps. That is where our armies will be, with their backs to the sea. That is where the retreat must stop." He coughed and winced with the pain. "No, not Boulogne," he continued, shaking his head. "If the Germans are in Abbeville, Boulogne will be their next target. The next step up the coast. So we go to Calais."
"Don't I get to have an opinion in this?" Don demanded. "You seem to forget that I drive the jeep."
"And I give the orders," the Frenchman spat back. "I have the higher rank, and you are in France."
All this was true enough, but Don was beginning to dislike the arrogance that this Frenchman hung around him like a cloak. He had half a mind just to leave the bastard here to the mercies of the Germans.
"Anyway," the Frenchman continued, 'you are lost. You have no idea where you are. You are as likely to end up heading for Berlin as towards your British friends."
Which was also true enough. He was way beyond his depth. He was also exhausted, hungry and very frightened: not in much of a position to argue.
"But why Calais?" he persisted.
"Because it is still free!" the Frenchman snapped. He drew deeply on his cigarette and his mood seemed to soften. "And because I live there. I want to see my family again before I die. Anyway, my brother still owes me money," he added, anxious not to display weakness. He threw away his cigarette and swivelled himself off the examination table. The doctor rushed forward with a crutch, anxious to get him on his way. The airman hopped on his good leg as gently as possible, then tried a couple of uncomfortable steps towards the door.
"You know Calais, Monsieur I'Anglais?"
"Oh, yes," Don replied. He'd seen it out of his bedroom window almost every day of his life.
"Good. We go."
Don wondered if, like the Frenchman, there was anyone he would want to see again before he died. As he helped him clamber into the jeep and gunned its engine, setting off with the rising sun on his right hand, he came to the conclusion there was no one. He had no one special in his life, no girlfriend, no loved one, no family at all. Except for his father.
Ruth Mueller had always had an agreeable relationship with her local butcher, Mr. Jarvis. In her eyes he was the embodiment of what an English butcher should be, with a heavily striped and slightly bloodied apron wrapped across a large stomach, above which his customers would always discover a welcoming smile. He wasn't like Watts, the other local butcher. Watts always' seemed to want to serve them short and would make up any discrepancy between what was on his scales and what was permitted on the ration by slicing off the smallest piece of meat and hoping it would be enough to make up the weight. You might end up with a chop and three additional grudging scraps, which in Ruth's case often meant scraps of fat. On the last occasion she had complained, and he'd made it clear that not only was she at liberty to buy her meat elsewhere but, in fact, he would rather prefer it. Since then it had always been Mr. Jarvis.
Mr. Jarvis had been more than fair. He could see from her appearance that Ruth was not well nourished and could tell the reason why from the way she had to scrape through the change in her purse. So when Ruth had asked him for scraps for her cat, offal that didn't fall on ration, he had on several occasions managed to wrap a kidney or a little piece of liver in amongst what he called the kitty bag so that both Ruth and the cat could eat that night. It didn't happen so often that it looked like charity, but frequently enough for it to make a difference. He was a good man, was Mr. Jarvis.
His customers, however, had grown less understanding. Nothing to do with the kitty bag; everything to do with the invasion in France. Ever since that morning, a conspicuous silence had fallen upon the other women when Ruth Mueller entered the shop. They would turn and stare at her, but not look her in the eye. Jarvis overcame the discomfort by raising the volume of his own voice to an even higher level than usual, greeting all the women together so that he didn't have to be polite to them one by one.
Yet this morning she had asked for some cat scraps and he had said it wasn't possible, he had none. Even though there was a tray of waste pieces in full view behind him.
The war had come to Pimlico.
The Frenchman had been right. Boulogne was next.
It came upon them with an awful suddenness for which they were still unprepared, and particularly so for Edward Halifax, dragged yet again from his bed. He found Ironside and other military men, equally bleary-eyed, standing around the old man's desk like schoolboys parading before their headmaster.
"The panzers have turned north," Churchill announced quietly.
And their weariness was gone. The Germans had a choice. They could have swung south to take on the retreating French and to fall upon Paris. But instead they turned north, to fall upon the British and the Channel ports. Boulogne would be next.
Quietly, privately, they had all prayed that the German panzers would sweep in the other direction, for in spite of their professional composure they knew that once the tide had set it would be impossible to turn. It would sweep the entire British Expeditionary Force away. They all knew that.
Except, it seemed, Churchill.
Halifax looked on with a mixture of admiration and bewilderment. The stubbornness of this man was beyond all reasonable limits. It was as though he were still fighting the bat
tles of an ancient time when a cry of Shakespearean defiance from atop a horse might turn a battle on its end. But panzers were deaf; they didn't listen. They just kept coming.
"Where are the French?" Churchill demanded of his generals.
It was difficult to know. Telephone communication across the Channel had grown so desperate and disrupted that the only way of getting any manner of certainty was to fly someone over from the battlefield in France, by which time the information was already out of date. But they could tell what the French were doing, could smell it in their nostrils in spite of all the diplomatic denials.
They're falling back on Paris. Defending their own. Leaving the way open for the panzers."
"But they promised they would be counterattacking north," Churchill protested. "Weygand himself promised me."
"Only if we also counterattacked south to meet up with them. And Gort says he cannot."
"Oh, rid me of generals who will not fight!"
"He has a Victoria Cross, Prime Minister. I don't think his valour is in question," Ironside intervened.
"It's not his courage I question but his tactics. He's suffered less than five hundred casualties in the entire campaign, yet he withdraws. If he withdraws north and the French withdraw south, the laws of physics demand that the Germans will win. And when we have our backs to the sea, when our footing is sand and our reinforcements are nothing but the seagulls, what will the good Viscount Gort's tactics dictate then?"
Silence.
"He must advance! He must. We are all agreed that he must?"
You couldn't know with Churchill. He threw these suggestions out at his Chiefs of Staff and it was never clear whether he was stating a fact, issuing an order or seeking their advice. In his memoirs he would insist that he never did anything without their approval. In practice, he carried on until someone spoke up and objected. When they did, he would try to bludgeon and bully them into submission. He was always demanding action, even when the situation screamed out for prudence; he was perverse, it was his nature, like a tortoise trying to enter a hundred-yard dash.