I don’t expect that. But I would like it. I know him, of course. Attended manoeuvres with him in 1909. An odious and ill-formed man. But useful. If by any chance he would agree, oh, how it would distract Hitler. Take his eye off the ball. Kaiser versus the Fuehrer, German against German.’ He sealed the envelope he had been addressing and rang a hand bell. ‘I would do a deal with the Devil if only he would part company with Hitler for a moment. We do so desperately need some distraction. We have enemies enough without creating more. Which is why we must have Neville, and Edward Halifax, too. And all the rest.’
He rang the bell again, more impatiently.
‘And for me?’
‘For you, Brendan? Minister of Information, I thought. My own private Goebbels. Waging war with words. You’re good at that. And we have so little else with which to wage war.’
‘Thank you, Winston. With all my heart. But – no. I think I should be here, by your side. At least until you have the show up and running.’
‘You would refuse your own ministry?’
‘There are so few who know you, understand your ways.’
Suddenly Churchill rose to his feet and flung open the door behind his desk. It led to a corridor, and at its end, deep in conversation, stood two male secretaries. Churchill’s shoulders heaved in irritation.
‘Have you both been deafened by the blast of some enemy bomb?’ he shouted at them. ‘Can there be any other reason why you have failed to respond to my bell?’
Bemused, they looked towards him and started to approach.
‘Fly! Fly! Or shall I call the guard to encourage you at the point of a fixed bayonet?’
The first man broke into a hurried shuffle; the second, seeking salvation, ducked into an open office door. It was Colville who arrived, his face a cauldron of embarrassment and anger.
‘I’m sorry, Prime Minister. A little confusion in responsibilities. We were rather expecting you to arrive at Downing Street this evening.’
‘Downing Street is still the home of Mr Chamberlain. I have offered it to him and Mrs Chamberlain until they can make suitable alternative arrangements. In the meantime you are to attend upon me here.’
‘I’m sorry, sir. As I said, a matter of confusion.’
‘And you are to run, do you hear me? Every time you hear that bell, you run, not walk, for so long as this war is in progress. I will not have walkers.’
Colville swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry with resentment. Never in his public service had he been spoken to like this. Still, it made his decision all the easier. He wouldn’t put up with it for a moment longer than would be necessary to get himself a transfer. Submarines, for all he cared, after this.
‘Tell me, where did you go to school?’ Churchill demanded.
What? What had his wretched school to do with it? ‘Why, Harrow, sir. But a while after you.’
‘Ah, another Harrovian. We make good runners at Harrow. You’ll do.’
And so, through the accident of his education, Colville stood conscripted.
‘Now, get me Lord Halifax on the phone. I have an urgent letter for him to deliver.’
‘It’s gone midnight. His Lordship will be asleep in bed, I’m afraid, sir.’
‘You know that for a fact?’
‘I know His Lordship, sir.’
‘Nevertheless, get him on the phone for me.’
‘It will be a most exceptional pleasure for him,’ Colville responded, tripping over his own sarcasm.
Churchill thrust his head forward. It made him look like a cannonball in flight. ‘No, it will not be a pleasure for him at this hour. And in future it will not be exceptional, either. Pray inform His Lordship of that, and anyone else that matters.’
Without another word, Churchill went back to his work and began writing a fresh letter. Colville, his face ashen, backed slowly out of the door.
Bracken hooked his leg over the arm of his chair and began to chuckle. ‘As I said, Winston, there are so few who understand your ways. I think I’d better stay.’
Churchill’s head fell towards the notepaper. ‘Thank God there’s one person in this room who knows what to do.’
It had been like a triumphal progress from ancient times. Slowly the British army moved forward across the frontier into what, until that morning, had been the green fields and gentle canals of neutral Belgium. At every village and crossroads they were greeted like heroes. Old men shuffled forward in carpet slippers to offer them bottles of beer, with womenfolk at their side bearing baskets of cheeses and oranges, and daughters who climbed up on the vehicles with their snatches of schoolgirl English to hand out an abundance of flowers and kisses. The BEF advanced upon the enemy with lilac on their helmets and dictionaries in their pockets, and soon the songs of old could be heard encouraging them on their way – ‘Tipperary’, ‘Pack Up Your Troubles’, and a new one, a tune about how they were going to hang out their washing on the Siegfried Line.
The column was closely packed, a confusion of every sort of vehicle grinding along at the pace of the slowest, but they were all heading in the same direction. North, towards the enemy. Belgian bicycle troops meandered beside the convoy, frantically ringing their bells. It was spring, hawthorn blossom blew across their path, and the British army sweated gently in the sun.
By early evening they had passed through Brussels and were making camp in an old deserted brewery outside Mechelen. They unloaded the chairs, filing cabinets and the bottles of sherry while tea was brewed. This site was to be the Casualty Clearing Station, for the time when there were casualties. But of the enemy there was no sign. Perhaps this one was going to be easy, after all.
In the evening, the padre came round with a billycan of corned-beef stew accompanied by cigarettes and a homily about the morality of their cause. Strange, Don thought, how morality had become such a moveable feast. Why, it was less than two years ago when vicars throughout the land had climbed into their pulpits to denounce aggression and offer prayers for the triumph of appeasement and Neville Chamberlain. Yet today, from those same pulpits and plundering phrases from the same scriptures, they prayed to the Almighty that they might remember their gas masks and gain rapid victory. Whichever way you read it, kneeling down or standing on your head, it simply made you giddy.
That’s not what he had explained to the Tribunal for the Registration of Conscientious Objectors, of course. For them he had displayed a morality that was clear, principled and utterly inflexible – he’d copied that much from his father. And it was his father’s God-fearing morality that he offered them, everything taken from the Book, every argument backed up by scripture and psalm. They quoted the Book back at him, all the bits about eyes for eyes and the righteousness of vengeance, but he’d spent so much more time in church and Bible classes than they had that putting down their counter-case had proved to be, quite literally, child’s play.
It troubled him that he couldn’t be entirely honest with the Tribunal. He would have liked to tell them that reasons why the world shouldn’t set out to slaughter itself were so bloody obvious you
