Christopher Priest - The Separation

The real Group Captain spoke. ‘It’s a short-term staff secondment, Sawyer. You’ll be told the details when we arrive, but from time to time the Prime Minister’s office makes personal appointments from within senior echelons of the forces. Many young men like you are chosen from the armed services for this kind of experience. It’ll stand you in good stead later on.’

‘What will I be expected to do?’ I was still slightly dazed by the news.

‘The P.M. or one of his people will explain that to you. Tomorrow you’ll receive a more detailed briefing from the staff at Admiralty House. Tonight, you are simply to meet the P.M. for a few moments. After that we’ll drive you to your quarters, which will be at RAF Northolt. You’ll be based at Northolt for the time being."

‘Sir, I thought I was going back on ops.’

‘You will be soon. This is a temporary posting. The promotion is also an acting one, although if you acquit yourself well in the next few weeks I dare say you won’t be returned all the way to your former rank.’

The driver suddenly braked the car and swung it to the left, as if until then she had not seen the turning she was looking for. As I lurched sideways in my seat I glimpsed tall, brick-built gateposts in the quick glare of the headlights, then wrought-iron gates. Uniformed police officers stood beside each gatepost, saluting as we passed through. Beyond the gate itself there was a more familiar military-style checkpoint, with a guardhouse next to it. Here the car halted and an army sergeant leaned down and examined everyone’s papers with careful movements of his torch. It was almost impossible for me to see what was going on. Strathy and Group Captain Dodman waited patiently. I carried no papers: my military identification had been lost or destroyed when the Wellington crashed into the sea. However, there appeared to be no problem as to my identity.

We drove on down the unlit driveway, passing between mature trees, with white-painted stones set at intervals on the sides of the track, each one gleaming briefly as we passed.

I remember those few seconds vividly. No one in the car spoke from the moment we left the barrier until we were inside the famous house called Chequers, giving me an opportunity to collect myself and prepare for what was to come.

As I write these words it is many years since the Second World War ended. I live in a time when it is fashionable in some quarters to be cynical about patriotism, bravery, political leadership, national purpose. I feel it myself sometimes, as in a properly sceptical democracy who should not? In 1941 things were different, for which I make no apology.

Winston Churchill then was an incomparable figure, almost unique in British history. For those of us who were alive at that time, we happy few, Churchill was the man who mustered the nation’s spirit when everyone expected defeat. We held out alone against Hitler’s Germany, then the most powerful military nation in the world. The result, a few years later, was the eventual military victory of the Allies, although in 1940 and 1941 there were few who would have seen victory as inevitable, or even likely. When the war ended in 1945, everyone was so relieved to be able to put the war behind them that they turned their backs on the years they had recently lived through. The war was over. What had mattered most then suddenly mattered not at all. Churchill fell spectacularly from power and languished in Opposition while much that he predicted came to pass. He returned as Prime Minister in 1951, for one more short term of office when he was physically enfeebled by old age. It is also true that for many years before he came to power in 1940 Churchill was a controversial figure on the margins, unpopular in some quarters, distrusted by most of his political contemporaries. But he rose to the moment. Churchill, in those long and dangerous months before the USA, the Soviet Union and Japan were involved in the war, quickly became a legend to most ordinary British people. He seemed to sum up a certain kind of British spirit, a symbol of British willingness to fight, perhaps never before identified until that need arose.

I was of that world, that generation. I was serving in the RAF when war broke out, with the rank of Flying Officer. Our early attempts to launch daylight bombing raids were met with fierce resistance. We suffered terrible losses and the raids were soon discontinued. The Blenheims we flew were too slow and badly defended for daytime use and did not have the range for deep-penetration night flying, so for most of the first winter and spring of the war we restricted ourselves to anti-ship ‘sweeps’ across the North Sea, rarely engaging, or even seeing, the enemy.

With the invasion of France, the war entered a deadly earnest phase and Britain’s safety was at risk. As the dangers loomed, Neville Chamberlain’s reputation as the man who had appeased Hitler made him an unsuitable war leader. He stood down, Churchill took over and a new spirit swept through the nation. Never was the peril greater; never were the British people so willing to face it. If you were there, if you lived through those times, you were in awe of Churchill. There is no other word for it, and it was awe that described my feelings as we drove slowly up to the main entrance of the Prime Minister’s country residence.

I was stiff from being cooped up in the car all day and it took me a long time to ease myself out on to the gravel surface, supporting myself with my stick. The two men I was travelling with watched with some sympathy, but I was determined to manage on my own. Sharp daggers of pain stabbed into my legs and back.

Gradually the pain eased. Group Captain Dodman was by my side as we went through the door, his hand lightly supporting the elbow of my right arm. We were met by a man wearing black trousers and a white shirt, neatly pressed, not in the least casual. He greeted all three of us by name, then asked if we would please wait a while.

We were shown to a side room: a long, dim, panelled chamber, with dark landscape paintings, trophies and bookcases lining the walls on each side. A table ran down the centre of the room, well polished, with a great number of chairs arranged neatly around it. The windows were draped with thick tapestry curtains, the dark fabric of blackout material visible behind them, covering the glass panes. The three of us stood in a nervous group just inside the door, waiting for what I at least assumed would be a summons in the next few minutes.

We were still there two hours later, having long since taken seats at one end of the table. During the time we were waiting callers to the house came and went, some merely delivering or collecting various things, others arriving on apparently urgent missions and being conducted straight away to other parts of the building. About an hour after we arrived we were brought a tray of tea and biscuits. We conversed little, all drained by the long day in the car and expecting to be called at any moment.

At about twelve-fifteen the summons finally came.

Stiffly again, I climbed to my feet. Leaving the other two in the waiting room I hobbled after the man who had come for me, feeling I should hurry so as not to keep the Prime Minister waiting, but put under no pressure to do so.

We crossed the hall where we had entered, then went along a short, darkened corridor. I was led into a room where there were four desks bearing large typewriters, with women working on two of them. The room was sparsely and cheerlessly furnished: bare floorboards, no curtains apart from the inevitable blackout screens, harsh overhead lights, a multitude of filing cabinets, telephones, in-trays, trailing wires, paper everywhere. Again, I was asked to wait. The secretarial work went on around me, with the two typists paying no attention to me at all. The clock over the door said that it was twenty minutes past twelve.