"You do realize, sir, that's against all the orders we've had."
"Yes, I know that. All the same, it's got to be done."
"The French won't attack on their own."
"They won't attack at all. That's why it's got to be done."
Pownall sat quietly for a moment. He didn't disagree with Gort's analysis, but the- consequences would be enormous. It would mean the end of the BEF. "Disobeying a direct order from your superiors and the PM. They'll have their pound of flesh for that."
"Better a British butcher than a German one, Henry."
(Saturday 25 May 1940. William L. Shirer, CBS.)
Good evening. This is Berlin.
In the opinion of German military circles, the fate of the great Allied army bottled up in Flanders is sealed. The Germans believe that army, containing the flower of the French, British and Belgian forces, cannot now escape .. .
Tonight the German Command, in giving us a general picture of the situation as it sees it, stated categorically that the Allies cut off in Flanders and the Artois now have no more possibility of breaking out of their trap. As the High Command stated it, quote: "The end of the enemy here is imminent'. How many Allied troops are cut off? German generals at the front to whom I put the question earlier in the week said about a million. Well-informed circles in Berlin think it may be a little higher than that. Roughly, they estimate the trapped armies this way: four hundred thousand Belgians, five hundred thousand French, two hundred thousand British .. .
Although he didn't suspect it, Tiny' Ironside's fate had been sealed since the bruising encounter with the young officer from Calais. The chaos wasn't entirely Ironside's fault, but as Chief of the Imperial General Staff it was his responsibility. That went with the job. Everything was his responsibility, not only Calais but Boulogne, the BEF and the entire buggeration factor in France. Decent man, Churchill thought, even a friend, so far as such things went, but responsible.
And he had been invited to join Churchill for dinner. He very much wished he hadn't.
He sat opposite Anthony Eden, the Secretary of State for War, with Churchill at the head of the table. The Prime Minister wasn't speaking. He hadn't said a word all through the soup, which he hadn't finished, and they had to wait until the beef and a third glass of wine had arrived before they were offered anything more than grunts. Then:
"Blackness. Nothing but an interminable trail of sorrows leads to this door and I suspect you have more sorrows for me, Tiny."
It was just the three of them, informal, first names, say what you like after all, he would. Yet Ironside chose not to dispute his Prime Minister's gloom.
"Where would you like me to start, Winston?"
"Bloody Belgium."
"Bloody, indeed." A slight resetting of the lips, a straightening of the back. "They've broken through. Either side of Courtrai. The Belgians are in retreat, the Germans driving forward. At some points they are probably less than ten miles from Dunkirk even as we talk."
Churchill, who had been toying with his beef, now pushed it away untouched. Most unusual. Two anxious, exhausted eyes raised themselves from the table. "What do you think will happen?"
"The Belgians will collapse. Either they will be swept aside by the panzers, or they will throw in the towel. Probably the latter my information is that King Leopold has lost the appetite for the fight. Which means it will happen sooner rather than later."
'"It"? What does "it" portend in this context?"
Oh, how the smallest of words could contain as many nightmares as a man could ever dream .. .
'"It" means .. . the end. Defeat. Unless somehow we can keep a foothold at Dunkirk. Fetch back some of the BEF. Live to fight another day, perhaps." His tone made it clear that he thought this was as likely as stumbling upon moonshine in the middle of the day, yet, even before the echo of his words had died away, two fists were pounding upon the table.
"How is this possible? How can it be that one man, with not a single ally, can force his will upon the whole of Europe when we, with all our leagues and ententes and alliances, have been dragged to the brink of disaster? Austria. Czechoslovakia. Poland. Holland. Norway. The Netherlands. Now Belgium. And next France." The cutlery jumped afresh with every name in the litany. Suddenly the crashing ceased and he was jabbing a finger.
"You see, Tiny, I sometimes think that there is a streak of defeatism amongst our General Staff, that they simply don't want to fight. They think That Bloody Man is invincible. But they're wrong! He's never been tested. He's a paper Caesar who has never faced the trial of true steel. Never been an English schoolboy."
Schoolboy? What the hell did that mean? Both Ironside and Eden glanced at Churchill's glass, trying to remember how often it had been raised. The man swept on.
"But now the hour has come. We discover the breaking point, not only of him, but of ourselves. You see, he is deluded. Grossly deluded. About us! Every experience he has suggests that the British will not fight this war. He saw that we entered it were dragged into it only with reluctance. Since then we have contested it barely at all. But what if we did? There's the question. What if Old England were to rise up and roar its defiance? What if we were to show him that we are lions and not terrified lambs?"
"But what does this all mean, Winston?" Eden interjected, alarmed by the cascade of romantic outpouring and afraid that the old man was, after all, entirely too old.
Churchill didn't respond immediately, but sat with his head up, like a stag testing the wind. When at last he took up Eden's challenge, his tone was far less hectoring. The words came slowly, dragging great weights after them.
"It means that we in these islands must prepare ourselves to withstand the full force of the Nazi onslaught. To place ourselves at the point where so many others have failed. We must continue the fight. We must bring our army back from Europe or as much of it as providence will allow and pray that through defiance we will see through to brighter days."
"But if we lose Dunkirk .. ."
"We shall lose Dunkirk." His chin had fallen to his chest and his eyes seemed set on a place far beyond this room. "No power we possess can prevent it any longer. So what matters is its timing, and that depends upon what we do now. The great Nazi scythe has swept through Europe. We must blunt it, and before it reaches Dunkirk." He turned to each man separately, his eyes suddenly flooded. "We must stand and fight at Calais, for if we don't do it there we may not get another chance. There is no other way. It breaks my heart, but there is no other way." He seemed unable to continue.
"Which way is that, Winston?"
"We must issue new instructions to our forces at Calais. No surrender, no evacuation. They must fight to the end. To the last man and to the very last bullet."
The flood in his eyes began to cascade down his cheeks.
"What else can we do? If there were another door open just a crack' he brought his finger and thumb together"I would leap through it."
"But to tell those men they must .. ." Ironside shook his head, unwilling to follow the terrible consequences of the thought. "What do we tell them?"
"Something like this should be said to our brave men of Calais," Churchill declared. "That their defence of the town is of the highest importance. That every moment they resist protects the lives of their brother soldiers, and every hour they continue their fight is an hour longer for our country to live in hope. That what they do there, the spirit they show, the evidence they provide of our unflinching British will to survive, may yet turn the course of this war. The eyes of the Empire are upon them, the eyes of history, too, and their exploits in Calais will be written as one of the finest chapters in our nation's long history. We shall owe them and their families a debt of honour. We shall never forget."
A profound silence hung across the table. For a while neither Eden nor Ironside could speak. Eventually it was Ironside.
"To the last man, and to the last bullet? Never in my life have I had to issue such an order."
"They must fi
ght on, ever on. Our nation's survival may depend upon it."
He turned to Eden. There were tears in the other man's eyes, too. "The King's Rifles are there, my own regiment," Eden whispered. He had fought in the last war and had watched most of them being slaughtered then, too.
"I know, my dear Anthony. I know."
It took a while for the three men to compose themselves. Then it was Churchill once more.
"We are agreed?"
A further silence, a silence of conspiracy and of consent.
"I am indebted to you both for your courage in this matter," Churchill whispered.
Ironside cleared his throat, stretched his arms out in front of him, looked straight ahead. There's one other bit of business which must be dealt with. Bloody Belgium as you put it, Winston. You both realize what it means: Gort got it right. If he'd been advancing south as he was ordered, with the Belgians in collapse, by tomorrow the BEF would be entirely cut off and on the point of being wiped out. Three hundred thousand men. His disobedience has spared us that. As it is, I fear that only a miracle can save us now." He cleared his throat once more, like a stallion before a fence, then turned to face Churchill. "Prime Minister' they all noted the sudden formality "I've been urging on you and on Lord Gort a strategy that has turned out to be fatally flawed."
They knew this was only partially true. It was flawed, no question of that, right to the hilt, but it had been Churchill's strategy before anyone's. Ironside was taking onto his shoulders a responsibility that in honesty should lie elsewhere at the table.
"Forgive this little speech, it's scarcely the right time if only I knew when the right time would come but we are asking for sacrifices by so many brave men, in part because of my failure to anticipate events."
"You're not alone in that, Tiny," Eden interjected.
"No, but I am alone responsible as Chief of the Imperial General Staff. I must accept responsibility for these failures, it's the way things should be done. So I must step aside.
Somebody else must take over, somebody who I hope will enjoy better fortune."
Churchill was startled. Ironside resigning? It had been his intention to push him aside, but not at this dinner table. It was a magnificent gesture.
"Tiny, your dedication and valour is beyond question. You need not reproach yourself. If I invited only those who had been entirely blameless over the last few years, this table would be empty. You're right, I think, though. Time for a fresh approach, perhaps a change of luck. But we shall want you here, in some role of the highest seniority, at the centre of things. I shall want your continuing support'
"And you will have it."
"On Calais, too. I need your support on that."
Ah, was Churchill's enduring friendship being offered only on that condition? But it didn't matter. Ironside smiled grimly. "Bloody ironic, isn't it? My last act as Chief of the Imperial General Staff will be to sign an order that will forever mark me down as'
"As a man who knew his duty and who did not flinch from it. That's how it will be seen, Tiny."
"By God, I hope you're right, Winston. But you have my support, of course."
"And you, Anthony."
Eden was beginning to harbour a niggling suspicion about the reasons for his invitation. Was it in his capacity as War Secretary, or as one of the King's Rifles? Was he here to offer advice, or to provide cover from any fire that might erupt after the order was issued? But it scarcely mattered. During the last war he had held a withering opinion of Churchill, but in this war, and on this matter, he thought he was right.
"Of course, Winston."
Churchill rose. "Whatever the outcome of this conflict,
whenever I recall this night, I shall remember that I spent it with two brave friends."
Three hours later a minesweeper forced its way into Calais harbour to deliver a message to Brigadier Nicholson. (It could not be sent by wireless because all the code books in Calais had already been burned.) The message read: "Every hour you continue to exist is of greatest help. The Government has therefore decided you must continue to fight. Have greatest admiration for your splendid stand. Evacuation will not (repeat not) take place, and craft required for above purpose are to return to Dover."
Five hours later, all the destroyers standing off Calais in sight of the garrison had been withdrawn.
Two nights later, in a fit of exhaustion and meanness, Churchill instructed Bracken to put it about that Ironside had been fired. "Pour encourager .. ." he muttered, 'before it's all too bloody late."
TEN
Sunday 26 May. The air that morning lay heavy with the sweet scent of doom. It was raining once more, grey, overcast, washing hope from the skies and blossom into the running gutters.
It had been ordained a National Day of Prayer. Initially Churchill hadn't objected to the proposal where was its harm? yet now the day had dawned and he was required at Westminster Abbey at the side of the King, he had begun to resent the imposition. The day had begun badly and would without any measure of doubt plumb more miserable depths. The news from Belgium was as bad as feared and from France growing worse. Defeatism was spreading across Europe like a medieval plague and had even infected the Cabinet room. That morning, Halifax had shown every sign of the sickness. He'd said it was no longer a matter of securing victory but a matter of survival, of safeguarding Britain's independence and if possible that of France.
As Churchill walked the few hundred yards to the Abbey, along pavements that glistened like dead fish, he knew it might not be long before the whole of Westminster caught the infection. "No longer a matter of securing victory but of survival?" But what had he told the Commons less than two weeks ago? You ask, What is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror; victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival .. .
In Halifax's dignified way, he was declaring a mutiny. Insisting that they sail a different course. Oh, the words were noble enough, 'safeguarding our independence', but how could our independence be safeguarded if the rest of Europe was awash with tyranny? What would Ruth say? He'd like Halifax to find out one day, lock German refugee and English aristocrat into a windowless room and see how long he lasted.
It was wrong to accuse him of defeatism, though. He was not a coward, just completely muddle-headed, believing that there was a way to talk themselves out of trouble. Just like they'd tried before, at Munich. Just like so many had tried with Hitler. To the academic and diplomatic Halifax it represented the triumph of reason, but to Churchill it seemed like the madness of a sailor, cast adrift and dying of thirst, hoping he could drink the sea dry.
Inside the Abbey the air had grown clammy from the rain and the fog of human breath. The King and Queen arrived, carrying their gas masks, and the service began.
Churchill grew increasingly discontented. Oh, why had they chosen the Abbey, this place of tombs, of royal decay, of the end of dynasties? Everywhere he looked there were memorials, reminders of death and fallen heroes. This was the wrong place on a day such as this.
The chanting of prayers began. Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name .. . Churchill didn't care for chanting, which he regarded as little more than a form of mass anaesthesia, and today he didn't care for prayers, either.
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.
But what is Thy will? If he had ever been sure, Churchill would have been a regular churchgoer, but at school he had been beaten for a lapse of concentration in chapel, the swishes being delivered with a little homily about how the cross represented the pronoun "I' crossed out. He hadn't swallowed it then, and all these years later still thought it bunkum. It's what Ruth had said Hitler was about, the destruction of individual identity. But the struggle to carve out that identity was the very stuff of man's existence!
Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive those who trespass against us .. .
&
nbsp; He fidgeted on his knees, fumbling with the words. Forgiveness? No, never, not Hitler. Forgiveness might be fine for the Almighty, but Churchill found himself quite incapable of it. He didn't profess to understand the ways of the eternal world, but on this earth there would be no forgiveness. No tea and cream cakes at the Palace with That Man! If God wanted to forgive Hitler when they met face to face, that was His business, and the sooner it was transacted the better.
And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever.
No, it wouldn't be God who delivered them from evil, not unless they decided to start giving Him a bit of a helping hand. The children of Israel hadn't got anywhere by talking, they'd only escaped from slavery in Egypt by forging their way through a sea of spilled blood the enemy's blood.
Amen.
Churchill would never compare himself to Moses, but his reticence had nothing to do with modesty. Moses had led his people to the Promised Land. So far as Churchill was concerned, his people were already in it. Perhaps it was time to remind them what they were fighting for.
Then Bracken was at his shoulder, whispering. Calling him away. There was a war to fight. Churchill bowed his head in apology to the King and, as unobtrusively as a Prime Minister could, walked solemnly from his stall in the choir to the door. As he passed rows of strained, pleading faces, he turned to Bracken.
"We English spend-too damned long on our knees," he growled. "Ridiculous way to fight a war."
Every man has a right to live in hope, and even in Calais that hope had not died. During the night a brilliantly lit hospital ship had drawn into the harbour to evacuate the wounded. Every man had watched it approach, dock, take on its cargo of woes, then steam away and disappear in the direction of home. The wounded would be in hospital in Dover in a couple of hours; those who stayed behind clung to the hope that more ships would follow and they could all die in England. But in the silence of the night that followed its departure, the word was passed round in whispers.