Winston’s War (34 page)

Churchill drew long on his cigar, considering what had just been said. “Why should they be willing to act as Samaritans in circumstances when my own bankers might prefer to pass by on the other side? The Rothschilds are bankers, too, and you could scarcely advise them that it would be a good investment.”

“But that's where you're wrong. They're Jews. They know what's happening in Europe. They know what Hitler stands for and how useless it is to turn the other cheek. In every part of Europe that Hitler controls, Jews are being roasted on the spit. They also know one other thing. That the only politician in Europe whom Hitler fears is you.”

“And what would they require in return?”

“Nothing.”

“I consider that most unlikely. In my experience there is always a price to pay.”

“Then we'll make the money available from a trust. A blind trust. So you won't know who's involved or who's given what. Your hands will be entirely clean and free to get on with the job.”

From his perch by the fireplace, the old man peered down impassively, drifting in and out of the fog from Havana.

“You represent hope to every Jew in Europe,” Burgess continued. “That's why I think they'd be willing to help.”

“The Rothschilds and their kind haven't built their financial empire on the basis of sentiment, Mr. Burgess.”

“Well, it's more than just sentiment. Let's face it, if we lose a war against Hitler, they're buggered anyway. First in line. Any money they might lose on you would be nothing but a drop in
a very bloody ocean.” He drained the last of his drink, surprised that he had finished it already. “They'll rescue you, because you may be the only man in Europe who can rescue them—and their money.”

“You have a very high opinion of my talents, Mr. Burgess—”

“I do.”

“Almost as high as my own. And I must admit that your visit is uncanny, like that of an angel in the hour of need. My bankers, as you say, are nervous types who appear to be busy gathering up their mountaineering equipment. I get the feeling that my debts may be a little too burdensome for them to carry on their trek.”

Burgess's hand, the hand on his crotch, was trembling. He desperately wanted another drink. He wanted to toast Rodney, the Dickensian little clerk in Churchill's bank who was all waistcoat and wet lips and whose responsibilities included scurrying around the vaults to ensure that all sorts of interesting records were filed away properly, including the one that covered Churchill's loan, six months, non-renewable. The six months were up in as many weeks. That's why he'd come. And even if the Rothschilds wouldn't help there would be many more who would, once they were instructed to do so.

“A blind trust, Mr. Churchill. Leave it to me.”

“You are an unexpected man, Mr. Burgess. You arrive on my doorstep in Chartwell when all the world is about to fall apart. Then you emerge from the dark in London when we can almost hear the sounds of crashing masonry. And each time you come bearing the gift of hope. What is to become of a man like you?”

“Perhaps one day I'd like to join the Foreign Office.”

“A splendid ambition—one in which I would like to be able to assist, if I could. You want to use your expertise in international affairs?”

“No,” Burgess responded, his task now complete and his
defenses swept away in the flood of alcohol. He no longer had the energy for equivocation. “It's simply the job security. You can't get fired from the Foreign Office, not for anything less than goats.”

For some time after Burgess had left, Churchill sat in his armchair by the window looking out across the darkened skyline of London, and brooding. Eventually he came to a conclusion. He picked up his pen and began to write. An article that would appear in the
Telegraph
under the headline: “Towards a Pact with Russia.” It spoke of the need for alliance with Moscow, of how the long-held objections to such an alliance had simply ceased to be relevant, about the harmony of interests that now existed with the Soviet Union. And about their common interest—peace.

He didn't believe that last bit, of course, about the Soviet leader having turned from a tyrant into an apostle of peace, but Stalin was needed and such things had to be said.

And he would be paid for the article. Not a fortune, but in his present circumstances every little bit helped. Sell a few articles, while in corners all across London other men were selling their principles.

“Damn his eyes—damn, damn, damn him!”

“Neville, please—”

“I won't have it!”

“Of course not, but—”

“I'm the bloody Prime Minister. I am! I am! They'd better start remembering that.”

“No one would dare—”

Horace Wilson's attempts at emotional surgery were cut short as Chamberlain's fists pounded on the leather-topped desk in Wilson's room so ferociously that the telephone jumped off its cradle. In an armchair by the fireplace, Joseph
Ball shriveled in alarm.

“No sooner does he drivel on about getting into bed with the Russians than half of Fleet Street goes crawling to his door and demands his return to the Cabinet.” Chamberlain swept up an armful of papers. “The bloody
Telegraph
again, the
Manchester Guardian,
the
Chronicle
—even the bloody Astors are at it. Look at the
Observer
.” The offending newspaper shook in his hand. “He must be blackmailing the Astors, there can't be any other reason. What's he got on Nancy, for God's sake, more sexual savagery from those ridiculous weekend parties of hers?” And all he'd got from his weekend with the Astors at their sumptuous home at Cliveden was a game of musical chairs. With an impatient sweep of his arm Chamberlain threw the offending journals into the corner, where they died like throttled chickens.

Wilson took a long moment before intervening, clearing his throat. He wasn't normally discomfited in the presence of his Prime Minister but he had rarely seen Chamberlain in such form. His face was white, the skin like cracked parchment, as though all the blood had drained to his spleen to fuel the rage. “You have to make a choice, Neville. Is he in or is he out?”

“Out! Out!”

More throat-clearing. “You ought to know what the Foreign Office is saying. That there are those within the German Government—those who don't want a wholesale war—urging you to include Winston as the only way to show Hitler that we mean business about resisting further aggression. The only way to keep the peace.”

“Which is why I
never
listen to the Foreign Office. Can you imagine that man in Cabinet? May the gods help me—he'd just talk. Take up my time. Endlessly disrupt. Use the Dispatch Box like a brawler uses a public bar.”

“Nevertheless, there's a lot of pressure—”

“And have my Government swept away on a tide of whiskey
and hot wind? Never! You know how he rambles. I sometimes wonder whether he's entirely stable, mentally. Passed down from his father. And all that alcohol over so many years. Must take its toll.”

“But we have to decide. Not just about Winston, about the pressure for an alliance with Russia.”

Chamberlain's eyes stared at Wilson in real pain, the lips thin as razors beneath the sagging moustache. “With murderers? Regicides? How can I go to the Palace and tell His Majesty that I am to do a deal with the men who butchered the Tsar? What will history say of me?”

“Churchill thinks that if we don't do a deal with Stalin, then the Germans might. Carve up Poland and the rest between them. He's been telling everyone…”—it was Ball, re-emerging from the depths of his armchair to come to the aid of his friend. He was waving a sheaf of transcripts. “I've stepped up the monitoring, you see.”

“But what you don't see—what neither of you seems to see—is that if I do any sort of deal with Russia now it will look as though he has set the agenda. And I will not—I will never—have the policy of my Government set by Mr. Winston Bloody Churchill!” It was the first time he'd brought himself to mention his adversary's name since the start of the outburst. He spat it out as the hands thumped down on Wilson's desk once more. His starched wing collar had become twisted and was digging into his neck, but he appeared not to have noticed.

Wilson rose to his feet, trying to engage his Prime Minister on the same level, tired of the flecks of spittle that kept falling on him. “Neville, you must calm down and listen. Half the wretched Cabinet want us to do a deal with the Russians.” It was a lie—the true figure was more like three-quarters—but such figures did not seem to impress Chamberlain, who began to scream.

“
They are my Cabinet and they will do as they are bloody-well told!”

The spittle continued to fly, but Wilson would not back down. He held Chamberlain's gaze, calling on their years of friendship, of understanding, of achievement. When finally Wilson spoke once more, his tone was determined. “The Russians have offered us an alliance. Publicly. We have to give them an answer, Neville. We can't dodge it.”

Chamberlain drew a huge lung-bursting breath which, as it was released, seemed to carry away with it much of the fire that had been consuming him inside. At last the heaving chest grew calm. “Very well, Horace,” he muttered, straightening his collar. It left a red weal where it had dug into his neck. “We will offer them talks. We will thank them for their proposal and send a delegation to Russia. But—we will send the delegation by ship. A banana boat for preference. Very slowly. We shall insist that every detail of the discussions is reviewed back here in London. And we shall put in charge a man of such hideous mental dullness—”

“You mean someone from the military,” Ball interjected.

“—that the talks can never come to any clear conclusion.”

“So what's the point?” Wilson inquired.

“It will give us time.”

“Time for what?”

“Time to get Winston off our backs. Time to put a bit of spunk back into the Cabinet. And above all time to pursue our own policies. I still want peace. Even if half of Europe demands annihilation, I still want peace. And I want Hitler to know that. So, Horace, this is what you will do.”

Chamberlain began to pace the small room, three paces forward on the rug, turn, three paces back, his hands clasped behind him, his narrow, sloping shoulders leaning forward.

“I want Hitler to know that he has a way out. That he still has more to gain from peace than from war. So you will continue
your negotiations with the Germans about the loans, Horace. Offer them the hand of peace and make sure it's full of cash. Tell them we want to get their workers out of the front line and back into the factories. Arms to agriculture, swords into ploughshares, all of that. You must persuade them of the peace dividend. Must persuade them of that. Everything depends on it.” Suddenly he had stopped and was jabbing his finger at Wilson. “But whatever you do, keep the whole thing out of the reach of the Foreign Office. Nothing to do with the Foreign Office, you hear? I won't have them briefing every journalist they can find in exchange for half a bottle of claret.”

He was standing at the window now, staring out over the park, silhouetted against the early summer light in a manner that left nothing but an outline. From inside the room, it seemed as though the sun itself had rejected him.

“Need to get things back into order on the home front, too,” mused Wilson, picking up the baton once more. “That's where you come in, Joe. Those security measures of yours.”

“You mean the phone taps.”

“Your watch over Winston.”

“Eden, too. And a few of the others.”

“Make it a few more of the others, eh? Try those within the Cabinet who've got good personal relations with Winston. Give us early warning of trouble. If it's going to happen, let us be the first to know about it—before it arrives on the front page of the
Telegraph
.”

“No problem.”

“Does Sam know about the taps?”

“Not exactly.”

“Meaning?”

“Doesn't know a bloody thing.”

“But he's the Home Secretary.”

“This isn't an official operation, you see. It's more by way of a testing of technical equipment, if you follow my drift. And
asking Sam's permission might prove—a trifle delicate.”

“Why?”

“Because he's on the list, too. Thought it best to keep track of the Home Secretary's love life—very little of which actually takes place at home. Dates, times, names—I've got the lot. I think we can rely on Sam's continuing loyalty. Don't know about his wife, though.”

“You disgraceful bastard.”

“Thank you. I'm being scrupulously even-handed. Managed to acquire some friends inside Odhams Press. They do all the printing for the Labour Party—pamphlets, posters, that sort of thing. So we know what they're going to say before even they do. Means we can get our oar in first. Got a couple of chums down at Labour Party headquarters, too.”

“How the hell…?”

“Bit of public indecency here, a drunk and disorderly there. I settle things for them with the Yard—no prosecutions—just leave the charges on the books to ensure their undying gratitude and, of course, enduring indiscretion.”

“Your mother was a vampire, surely…”

“Sadly, the black arts don't work every time. Some less good news. Winston's loan. Seems he's got someone to replace it. So no collapse of that particular stout party, at least not yet.”

“Pity. It was only meant to be a little distraction, a chance to twist his tail, but it might have kept the old monster quiet for a while. If only we can get through this summer…”

Suddenly, the figure at the window stirred. It had stood impassively, like stone, but now the shoulders heaved, a conductor calling his men to the music. “There is another way,” he announced quietly, joining them once more. The voice was hoarse, desiccated. He turned. “Another way, perhaps, to keep him quiet. One he might least expect.”

“We shoot him?”

“We
encourage
him.”

“Neville?”

“If we let him
think
I might reappoint him to Cabinet, make him believe we're considering it, play on his inexhaustible vanity…then he might turn the good little nigger.”

The others grew excited as the idea inflated before them.