Churchill’s Hour. Michael Dobbs
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‘I give you my word.’
Once more Randolph threw himself into his father’s arms, then he was gone, with his father’s tears fresh upon his cheeks.
Churchill watched him go. For a long time he stood on the spot, reaching out after his son’s shadow, clinging to the echo of his words, wondering if they would ever see each other again. Then he whispered.
‘Not today, Randolph, not tomorrow perhaps, but they will come. Before it is too late. I promise you.’
The rocket was one of Churchill’s ‘little toys’. He was fond of his toys. He had set up a specialist group of boffins and pyromaniacs to produce them—‘any new weapon, tool or war-thing that might assist us in the task of smashing the enemy to smithereens,’ as he had put it. The official designation of the group was MD1, but to most it was known simply as the ‘Singed Eyebrow Squad’.
This morning they were testing a small rocket, no more than three feet in height. What the precise purpose of the weapon was to be, no one was entirely sure; the purpose would come later, after the principle had been proven. Churchill had gathered an unusually large group for the weekend; not only family and personal aides, but two Americans and an assortment of braid from all three services, with a couple of Ministers thrown in for ballast. After breakfast they had gathered on Beacon Hill overlooking Chequers, wrapped in overcoats and scarves against the chill February air, the low sun casting long shadows while an inspection party of crows flew languidly overhead. Those responsible for the day’s matinée scurried like grave-snatchers through the mist in the pasture below, while Sawyers weaved his way through the entourage on the hilltop dispensing coffee and shots of whisky.
‘Faster, man,’ Churchill encouraged, ‘or we’ll all freeze.’
‘If we’re going to invite a three-ring circus every weekend, we’ll be needing more hands to help.’
‘What? Are you saying you can’t cope?’
‘I can. Boiler can’t.’
‘What the hell’s the boiler got to do with winning the war?’
‘Do yer know where Mr Hopkins goes to read his papers?’
Churchill began to growl, his breath condensing in the slow-warming air and giving him the impression of an elderly dragon. It was bluff, and Sawyers knew it.
‘He goes to the bathroom,’ the servant continued.
‘I often read my papers in the bath.’
‘He’s not in the bath but in his overcoat. Only place in the whole house that’s kepping warm. So he tekks his work into the bathroom and disappears, like, for a couple of hour. Inconvenient fer other guests, so it is.’
Hopkins was frail, American and of huge importance. Churchill thrust out his small tumbler for another shot of warming whisky.
‘So what are you suggesting?’
‘Like I say, we need help. More hands. Two more maids.’
‘Two?’ Churchill protested.
‘Two, if we’re to kepp a fire in every room and clean sheets on beds. And help poor Mrs Landemare. She’s not getting any younger.’
Oh, but he was playing the game, and with consummate skill. Sawyers understood his master as well as any man, his foibles, his vanities, his indulgences. His meanness and his dislike of new faces, too.
‘We don’t need two, dammit. This is a war headquarters, not a holiday resort.’
‘I’m sure Mr Willkie don’t mind sleeping in a British general’s sheets, but what wi’ boiler being in such poor shape, I’m afraid there weren’t time to launder ’em, like, before he arrived.’
Churchill snorted in alarm. Upsetting Mrs Landemare would have consequences creeping close to the point of disaster; upsetting the Americans might take them far beyond. Hopkins was a close friend of Roosevelt, while Willkie had been his opponent in the last presidential election. They had arrived as the President’s personal emissaries—‘to check up on me’, as Churchill had grumbled in exasperation. And to check up on Britain. Roosevelt had announced the principle of Lend-Lease but now he needed to decide how much to send and to lend. Some of his advisers had been whispering in his ear that he wouldn’t be getting much of it back, that most of it might soon be falling into the clutches of the German High Command. So he had sent Hopkins and Willkie to test the temper of both the country and its wayward leader: as the President had put it to Hopkins, ‘we need to know whether the Brits will carry on fighting—and whether Churchill will ever stop.’
Churchill knew all this, knew that his American guests had been sent to spy, and he had responded by trying to seduce and suborn them. Their conclusions—and therefore their comforts—were of immense importance. It was the opportunity Sawyers had been waiting for.
‘A ship lost for ha’p’orth of tar,’ he mused, ‘and a war for an unlaundered sheet.’ He shook his head in mock resignation.
‘One!’ Churchill proclaimed defiantly, but knowing he had lost. ‘One extra maid. That’s as far as we go.’ He glared at Sawyers. ‘And you’d better make sure she’s up to the job.’
Oh, but she was. Sawyers had already made sure of that. A niece of Mrs Landemare’s husband. French, but almost one of the family.
‘I’ll do me best,’ the servant sighed, turning away to tend to the guests, and to smile.
In the valley below, the huddle of technicians had broken and a man was waving his arm furiously. From on top of the viewing hill, an officer of the Royal Artillery returned the signal and came hurrying across to Churchill.
‘Permission to proceed, Prime Minister?’
‘Unless you’d prefer us all to freeze first.’
And there was more waving, and scurrying to a safe distance in the valley below, followed by several tense moments of—nothing. While Churchill stamped his foot in impatience, the Americans turned and smiled graciously. The moments stretched. The senior officers seemed grim and the Ministers embarrassed. Yet suddenly, beneath them, the mists parted like a biblical sea and they saw the rocket beginning to climb into the air. It was hesitant at first, as though uncertain of its direction, the steam and smoke from its motor bursting forth in fits and starts, until it had climbed to perhaps fifty feet in height. Then the engine coughed. The rocket seemed to lose faith. It pitched over.
It was at this point, as all seemed lost, that the machine found its life once more and roared into action. It headed straight for the group on top of the hill, leaving a trail of angry, swirling vapours behind it. The circling crows cried in alarm as everyone on the ground scattered like mice, their sticks flying, hats tumbling, all dignity gone, until with one final bullying roar the weapon embedded itself not twenty feet from where they had been standing.
Sawyers alone had not moved. As the smoke and panic finally dissolved, the others collected their wits and fallen headgear, and rose to find him still holding a tray brimming with glasses. Not a drop had been spilled.
Churchill was panting; he had shown surprising agility for a man of his years. As the others gathered round he waved in the direction of the still smouldering rocket. ‘Needs a little tweaking, don’t you think?’
‘Winston,’ Hopkins said, reaching for a drink, ‘if it does that to us, think what it might do to the damned Germans. You might yet win the war. Terrorize them into surrender.’
‘Yes, somehow cannonballs seem so much more logical. In celebration of which I think perhaps we shall watch the Nelson film tonight,’ Churchill announced.
‘Lucky man, was the admiral,’ Sawyers muttered as he gathered up the remaining glasses.
‘What are you grumbling about, man?’
‘A pot o’ powder and a bit o’ breeze, that’s all he ever asked. Like