Churchill’s Hour

Winant stumbled in reply, wondering if he were being asked merely out of politeness and not wishing to intrude. Sarah rescued him, reaching out to touch his sleeve. ‘Papa won’t take no for an answer,’ she told him. ‘He never does.’

To Winant she seemed delicate, a little fragile, and desperately appealing. And then she was gone.

Sawyers was hovering at the door. Behind him a pair of generals and an air vice-marshal were impatiently waiting their turn. ‘Time for me to go, too,’ Winant said. ‘You’ve work to do. A war to wage.’

Churchill stood and extended his hand. ‘I’m grateful for your candour, Gil. I know that’s what the President wants, it’s also what I want. No barriers between us, to hell with the diplomatic niceties. I pray we shall always be as straight with each other as brothers.’

Sawyers escorted the ambassador out. On the way to the door he gave the American a potted history of the old house. He also pointed to some of the features that had been added more recently—reception rooms that were badly damaged, windows broken and blocked up, great holes in the ancient plaster on the ceiling.

‘In all honesty, Your Excellence, Number Ten’s not exactly what yer might call a substantial house. George Downing was a bit of a bad ’un, like. Built the street wi’out foundations.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘I believe he went to America, zur,’ the valet replied, leading him through the hallway.

As the great black door opened, it revealed a day growing dark and starting to spit with rain. Sawyers produced the American’s coat and hat, both of which had been given a stiff brushing.

‘Tell me, Sawyers, what does “KBO” mean?’ the ambassador asked as Sawyers helped him shrug into his coat.

‘Begging your pardon?’

‘“KBO.” He kept muttering it.’

‘Ah, it’s a military phrase, zur. From trenches in last war.’

‘Meaning?’

‘“Keep Buggering On.”’

‘Yes, of course it does,’ the American said, smiling. ‘You must find your job fascinating, Sawyers.’

‘I do find it has its moments, zur.’

‘An important job, too.’

‘Nowt special.’

‘But you are with him from morning to night. You see everyone and everything, on the way in and on the way out. I guess that makes you more important than the Lord Chief Justice and the Minister of War put together. And much better informed.’

‘Sadly not.’

‘Oh, and why is that?’

‘’Cos I’m by way of being too pig ignorant to understand or remember owt that’s said, zur.’

Winant looked nonplussed.

‘I’m quoting Mr Churchill, Your Excellence. Word fer word.’

Winant’s eyes danced with amusement.

‘We’re looking forward to seeing you at Chequers at weekend, zur,’ the valet continued as the ambassador stood on the doorstep, inspecting the weather. ‘But you’ll find it very English. Might I suggest that you put aside a particularly warm pair o’ pyjamas for the occasion? The central heating in’t up to what most American gentlemen seem to expect. I’m sure if Mr Roosevelt sends us any more American guests, we’ll have to ask him to send a new boiler along wi’ ’em.’

The rain was growing heavier. The American pulled up his collar and scoured the sky. ‘Well, Sawyers, we’ll see what we can do. Tanks, battleships, bombers—and one new boiler. Lend-Lease at your service. Which reminds me, you will be getting another American soon, the man who’s coming to run the whole Lend-Lease show. Harriman. Averell Harriman’s his name.’

‘We look forward to meeting the gentleman. I’m sure he’ll be given a right warm welcome by Mr Churchill and the entire family. Night, Your Excellence.’

As the door closed behind him the ambassador, hat clamped firmly to his head, disappeared into the rapidly fading light. As he hurried through the drizzle, he wondered if Hitler knew that Downing Street appeared to be defended by nothing more than one unarmed policeman and an uppity servant.

She found him seated in an armchair by the fire in the Hawtrey Room, with Nelson asleep on his lap. It was late, almost midnight.

She hadn’t wanted to disturb him, but she knew of no one else who might understand, no one else who knew Randolph well enough—his recklessness, his passions, his appetites and ego, his moments as a little boy lost, all of which she had been able to tolerate and even welcome, until they had ended up smothering her in debt and left her bleeding on a bathroom floor.

He never turned her away, not like he did so many of the others. She seemed to occupy a special part in his world—so did Randolph, of course, but Pamela didn’t shout at him. And while his own elder daughters seemed to have inherited the ‘Black Dog’ of darkness that so often pursued him, Pamela was fun. Uninhibited. Almost a talisman. It wasn’t simply marriage and the baby, but a link that stretched back through the mists of time. Pamela had been born in the manor house at Minterne Magna in Dorset, which three centuries earlier had belonged to the Churchill family. The first Sir Winston Churchill had been born and was buried there. Links that bound them together from long ago.

He was studying the contents of a buff-coloured box. It was his box of secrets, in which Menzies and his intelligence men sent him their most sensitive items—his ‘golden eggs’, as he called them. She saw it and her heart sank. The papers came first. This was the wrong moment.

He looked up. She could see the rime of exhaustion clinging to his eyes before he returned to staring into the fire.

‘This morning, we shot a German spy,’ he said, very softly. ‘Parachuted in. Fell badly. The constabulary picked him up in less than three hours. And in less than three months we sat him in a chair, bound his arms and then his eyes, and proceeded to snuff out his life.’

She was surprised to see tears glinting in the firelight.

‘He was born in the same year as Randolph.’

‘He was a spy, Papa.’

‘He was a brave young man.’

‘A German. An enemy.’

‘And shall we shoot them all?’ He began stroking Nelson, staring into the fire. ‘When will it cease, Pamela? When shall we be able to return to the lives we once knew?’

‘Only when we have won.’

‘And, I fear, not even then.’ He seemed to be in pain. For many moments he sat silently, hurting, his mind elsewhere, seeking comfort from the cat.

‘Every night, before I fall asleep, I place myself before a court martial,’ he began again. ‘I force myself to stand trial, accuse myself of neglect. Have I done my duty? Have I done enough? Did all those men who died that day at my order give up their lives for sufficient reason, or did they die for nothing more than vanity?’

‘You know no man could do more.’

Churchill tapped the buff-coloured box. ‘Goebbels made a speech the other week. About me. I’ve just been reading it. Ever since Gallipoli, he said, Winston Churchill has spent a life wading through streams of English blood, defending a lifestyle that has outlived its time.’

‘He’s a liar. The blood has been spilled by Germans, not by you.’

‘But perhaps he has a point, you see.’ He held out his hand, summoning her close. She knelt at his feet.

‘The world in which I grew up and through which I have travelled all my life has outlived its time. My world is a world of Empire and Union Jacks, where the scarlet coat of the British soldier has stood proud and firm in every corner of the globe. Yet now…No matter what the outcome of this war, Pamela, that world is lost. The days of an atlas splashed in red, of emperors and adventure, of natives and majestic nabobs, they are all gone. Of another time.’