Winston’s War (61 page)

“Those who didn't make it onto the first list. Who had no official or obvious personal reason for being there. The one-off callers. Those he saw on his own. You check it out and come up with a list of names. Shouldn't be more than a handful—as you say, he doesn't have the time. Unless he deliberately made some. If there are any devils at our elbow, that's where we'll find them.”

“Then what?”

For the first time in days Wilson allowed a thin smile to replace his frown.

“You come up with a name, Joe. And that, I strongly suspect, will be an end to Winston's little war.”

It isn't clear how Jerry can make it to the dockside. For a man whose physical resources have been consumed by fatigue, it seems impossible to cover nearly ten miles in under two hours. But fear carries him, and thoughts of home, every step and stumble of his way down the mountainside, pushing him, forcing him on, picking him up when he falls. He thinks of Sue. Where the drifts of snow lie thick, her smile gives him strength; when he becomes disorientated and lost, she whispers to him, guiding him towards the glow in the night that is the burning of Namsos.

As he draws closer, Jerry knows he is no longer alone. He begins to find abandoned buses, broken trucks, redundant supplies, on all sides the wreckage of retreat that has been cast aside by those who have gone before. And every time his path leads him up to a vantage point, he sees with ever more clarity the signs of the evacuation below him—the outlines of men scurrying between the fires, of small boats leaving the makeshift wooden quays, the shadow of a destroyer lurking at anchor beyond. He knows they won't wait for him, for soon daylight will arrive and death waits for any ship stuck motionless in Namsos fjord. By dawn, they will be gone. Jerry stumbles on.

He passes more abandoned vehicles. A baker's truck, several private cars, even cruelly bent bicycles. And gun emplacements where, until perhaps only minutes earlier, the British rearguard watched and waited for the order to fall back on the port. It seems they were armed with nothing more substantial than Bren guns—they have left the tripods behind, along with boxes of unused ammunition. They were all taking part in a race against time, a race in which Jerry started several laps behind.

Now he can see them. Clearly. Less than two miles away. Can even hear an occasional shout of command, but it's
drowned out by the thudding of the engine of a crowded trawler as it disappears into the darkness. Jerry shouts back, waves his arms, but it is useless. His legs feel on fire, as though he's being burned at the stake. He wants it to stop. His body and his mind are screaming at each other, insisting the other give way. He drags himself forward.

Now he is in the town, or where the town has been. Nothing left but smoke, moving like banks of fog across his path, burning his throat, trying to suffocate him. Half-collapsed walls that look down on him in reproach. The front of a church, windows blown out, staring sightless, like a skull. Fires flickering everywhere, marking the gateway to Viking hell. He will soon be there. But as he catches glimpses of the dockside, it seems there are now only a few men left, and only one boat.

Still the stench of rotting fish pervades the place, fighting its way through the choking dust, taking him back to the time when they arrived, so full of hope and expectation. The memory fills him with anger, for what has happened has been no accident of war but raw, bloody, inexcusable incompetence. Incompetence that has killed so many of his mates and has all but done for him. But not yet.

Then he is there. He stumbles onto a quayside that is full of equipment of all kinds—vehicles, a dozen trucks, heaps of rifles, boxes, oil drums, stores, some abandoned, others only recently arrived and never touched. There are even two Bofors anti-aircraft guns, waiting for their orders to go to war. But Jerry is no longer interested in war, he's interested in nothing but survival. And now he is at the water's edge.

But they are gone. He is alone on this dockside, but on the water in the distance he can see a turbulent wake, and he follows that to a point where he can just make out the ghostly outline of a small tender rapidly disappearing into the dark. He shouts, but his cries echo back unheard. Shouts again, waves his arms, but it is pointless. Armies in retreat don't look back.

Yet Jerry is not done. Nearby, lying in the snow, is a motor-bike, a Norton, thrown to the ground and forsaken. Jerry hauls it upright and sits astride, pointing it out to sea. He kicks the engine into life, switches on the headlamp, flashes it at the retreating boat. Nothing. He flashes again, blows the horn—it must be so difficult to see against the fires of a burning town, but it's all he's got. Then it seems to him that the boat is no longer disappearing but is hovering just on the edge of his vision. He flashes again. And again, “SOS—SOS.”

At last a lamp flashes in response, “IDENTIFY.” They've seen him!

“SGT WHITE B COY KOYLI.”

But they are cautious, fearful of a ruse by the German mountain troops they know are in hot pursuit.

“MOTTO,” they demand.

Oh, but they know what they're about, these boys. His legs begin to tremble as relief floods through and overwhelms his body. His fingers are trembling, too, on the light switch.

“CEDE NULLIS.”

Smoke is blowing across the quayside, blotting out the lamplight. They ask him to repeat. He flicks the switch.

“NEVER BLOODY YIELD.”

Then an interminable pause, before they respond:

“RETURNING.”

And the distant shadow is moving once more, but this time growing larger. It all seems too slow for him, but the sea has its own pace. Jerry is off his bike, standing in the snow, staring out to sea from where his rescuers are coming, waving his arms in welcome.

The British are abandoning Namsos, and leaving behind their honor. Under direct orders from London they have failed to inform the Norwegians of their withdrawal, and are leaving their allies hopelessly exposed. Consumed by a sense of personal shame, the commander of the Namsos operation has written
to his Norwegian counterpart, apologizing for the impossible circumstances they both find themselves in. He has also tried to find some token, some mark of recompense, which might in some small part make up for the sense of betrayal the other man inevitably feels. “We are leaving a quantity of material here which I hope you can come and take, and know it will be of value to you and your gallant force.” The material he speaks of now lies abandoned on the quayside all around Jerry.

Yet in the confusion of retreat, objectives are inevitably compromised. No one has told the captain of the destroyer about the intention to leave supplies for the Norwegians. As far as he can tell, anything that is left behind will soon fall into the hands of the pursuing Germans. So as soon as he hears that the last boat has left the quay, he issues orders for it all to be destroyed. It is the early hours of May 3, 1940. The guns of the British destroyer rain down their fire upon the dockside until everything is destroyed. In the process, they kill Sergeant Jerry White.

The last British blood to be shed in Namsos, spreading out across white snow. Like a rose upon lace.

May 7, 1940.

C
hrist, bit savage, didn't you think, Ian? All that claptrapin the press?”

“Going for the jugular, that's for sure.”

“Don't care for it. So damned unfair.”

“Even the
Mail's
calling for a change.”

The pair of old warriors are forcing their way through the crowded House in search of seats, trying to avoid the knots of colleagues and conspirators that seem to have gathered at every point.

“
Mail
, too?” Dickie shakes his head. “Vultures! Only a few months ago they were singing his praises. Hitler's too. My God what has happened to this place?”

“Defeat.”

“So we've been in a scrap. Got a bit of a bloody nose. But it's not as if London's being bombed.”

It is a gentlemen's club, full of old leather and tradition, but today the House is not a place of comfort. A mustiness hangs in the air, a combination of late nights, anxiety, and male bodies too closely packed. But Ian has found a small gap in the crowd, the suggestion of a space on the final row of leather benches
at the back of the House. It will give them an excellent view of proceedings. They squeeze themselves in.

“You really think it's possible?” Dickie presses when, after much pushing and apology to either side, his ample trousers finally make contact with green leather.

“What?”

His voice falls to a whisper. “You know—Neville.”

“Something's got to happen. We can't go on as we are,” Ian replies.

But further discussion is cut off as, beneath them, the Prime Minister makes his entrance, emerging from behind the Speaker's Chair to pick his way carefully like a crane across the outstretched legs of his colleagues who have already gathered on the front bench. A chorus of support rises from the Government benches, organized by the Whips, but Ian notes that very few of his colleagues get to their feet in order to welcome their leader. A secure seat seems to command a greater value.

Chamberlain, too, notes the restraint. In a fickle world a Prime Minister is only as good as his last performance and Chamberlain has acknowledged—privately and only to himself—that he misjudged his performance of the previous week. He presented the matter of the withdrawal from central Norway in a positive light, but now the troops are back and in their wake have come crawling the military correspondents with their wails and woe. They are like the camp followers of old, these satirists and cynics, wandering across the battlefield after the danger has passed in order to rob the bodies. He despises them. He had despised them even when he controlled them. Now that they are proving to have an appetite for carrion, he despises them all the more.

He knows this will be a day of significance. He has dressed carefully. A fresh wing collar, as always, and the tie that his wife bought for him to celebrate the birth of their first grandchild.
He wants to present his best appearance, but beneath the silk shirt and tailored jacket he can't help noticing how thin he has grown, how advancing years have begun to wear him away. Not the man he had once been. But neither is the country what it had once been, even twenty months ago, when he returned from Munich and they had all—yes, all of them—hailed him and his works. Now they display the gratitude of sea gulls.

He has driven the short distance to the House. He wanted to walk, but there were crowds, some of them displaying unhelpful placards, and he has to keep his mind focused, to rise above them, so high that their slings and arrows will simply never reach. And as he settles into his seat by the Dispatch Box he acknowledges the cheer of his colleagues—a self-conscious sort of cheer, perhaps, but enough to drown the inevitable heckles. He can't help noticing that the House is exceptionally crowded, packed tight. The thought crosses his mind that it looks like an evacuation ship, but he quickly dismisses such nonsense.

The cheering and waving of Order Papers along the Government benches has subsided now. Slowly the House begins to settle, preparing itself. As it does so, a voice with a deep Lancashire accent penetrates to every corner.

“There 'e is. The fella who missed the bus.”

And the House once more is in disorder, the Opposition benches roaring their approval, all the careful work of the Whips undone. Chamberlain bows and smiles at the Member, gracefully acknowledging the thrust, and silently vowing vengeance by whatever means he can bring to bear. But now the floor is his. The debate on the operations in Norway gets underway, two days of it. His walk with destiny is about to begin.

He grips the Dispatch Box with both hands, steadying himself, like an athlete about to leap. He starts by praising the magnificent gallantry of the British troops. A facile point to
make and one that is impossible to oppose. Nothing gained but a little time. So they wait, and watch, like crows strung out along telephone wires, hoping for carrion.

The withdrawal from central Norway, he acknowledges, has created a profound shock both in this House and in the country.

“All over the world!” someone cries.

God, is he to be interrupted before he's begun? He scowls at the Speaker, who pretends to be looking at his notes.

Some have suggested that Ministers are to blame for the shock of the withdrawal, and he acknowledges that Ministers must expect to be blamed for everything. His tone is slightly condescending. He stands tall, braces his shoulders in order to show that he is big enough to take any amount of blame.

“What's he doing—waiting for the bus?” Lancashire cries out again.

Not that tired jibe again…Inside he wriggles with rage, but presses on. If anyone is to blame, he declares, it is not Ministers but those who raised expectations about the venture in Norway which were never justified. Expectations that were so ridiculous they might indeed have been invented by the enemy. Expectations that were completely unfounded and certainly never endorsed by Ministers.