Christopher Priest - The Separation

I nodded politely. The Prime Minister’s answer had piqued rather than satisfied my curiosity. He had in fact told me nothing at all about Joe during our short meeting.

‘Is this your first visit to London since the Blitz?’ said the man beside me, persisting.

‘Yes. . . yes, it is.’

‘The damage must seem terrible to you. Did I hear you say you had a brother who was killed in action?’

‘No, it wasn’t like that,’ I said, distractedly. ‘Not in action. He was a civilian.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that. My own brother’s in the Royal Navy, you know. Commands a destroyer, out on the Atlantic convoys. Nasty job sometimes.’

‘Yes, so I hear.’

‘Did you ever fly any naval liaison missions. Group Captain? My brother speaks highly of the RAF.’

‘I’m not attached to Coastal Command,’ I said. ‘I’ve never worked with the navy.’

‘I must arrange an introduction for you to the C-in-C Western Approaches. Good man. I’m sure he’d be fascinated to meet you. Look,’ he said, pointing across me and the Prime Minister into the distance, over another field of rubble. ‘Tower Bridge is still standing. The Luftwaffe uses it as an aiming point, you know. They line up on the docks by using the river and they know where they are when they see the bridge. They could knock it out if they wanted to, but it’s probably more useful to them left as it is.’

So it went on, the flood of chatter from the man beside me, removing any possibility of my pressing Mr Churchill on what he might have known about Joe.

After we passed through the City the visible damage became even more extensive than before, at one point the road narrowing to a single lane that wound between two immense heaps of rubble. Policemen were on duty here, waving our convoy through. They saluted the P.M. as our car went by. Afterwards we crossed the Mile End Road - my companion the civil servant smoothly identified it for me - then joined a narrower road leading down to the river. Here the car slowed to a gentle halt. The other two cars pulled up behind us.

Two uniformed policemen emerged from one of the intact buildings at the side and together with our driver set about lifting back the convertible roof and folding it into its special place at the rear. The drizzle, still misting down as it had done since first light, began to settle on us.

The Prime Minister watched the operation of removing the roof calmly. When the driver was back in his seat at the front of the car, he stood up, bracing his weight on the long metal handle that was at the front of the compartment.

‘Gentlemen, it’s usually left to you to decide whether you should stand with me or remain seated,’ he said. ‘Because of the weather today, from which there’s no escape, you might prefer to take it on the chin with me up here. It’s actually rather more comfortable to be standing for short distances. You’ll discover, Group Captain, that a firm grip on the handle in front of you will keep you steady.’

The civil servant and I both stood up, finding, as Mr Churchill said, that with all three of us on our feet it was possible to stand in some comfort. Churchill felt around in his pockets, but the civil servant was already ahead of him. He produced a box of matches and struck one of them. He held the flame steady so that the P.M. could light his cigar.

Churchill took two or three deep pulls, turned the end around in his mouth to moisten it, then declared himself ready. The car moved forward at about ten miles an hour.

Behind us the other ADCs were also standing up in their cars. Steadily our little motorcade headed down into the wasteland of blasted homes, warehouses and dock installations.

We came around one particular corner and I saw that the Women’s Voluntary Service had erected a large tent, from which hot food and drinks were being handed out. A large crowd was clustering around it, but a sizeable number of the people on the edge of the crowd were looking expectantly towards us. The moment our car came in sight, an immense cheer went up and everyone began waving and yelling enthusiastically. People inside the tent rushed out to join the crowd. Everyone was waving. Some people were clutching Union flags. The noise was tremendous.

Mr Churchill immediately raised his hat, waved it in a jovial fashion and held up his big cigar for everyone to see. The cheers redoubled.

‘Are we downhearted?’ he cried.

‘NO!!’ came the immediate response.

‘Give it to ‘em, Winnie!’

‘We can take it!’

‘Dish it out, Mr Churchill!’

‘Give the Jerries all we’ve got!’

The car drove steadily on. A smaller crowd beyond the tent heard the noise and as soon as we hove in view another great commotion arose. Mr Churchill waved his hat, beamed at the crowd, puffed expressively on his cigar.

‘We can take it!’ he said loudly.

‘We can bloody well take it!’ they responded.

‘Give ‘em as good as we got!’

‘Give old Adolf what he deserves!’

‘God Save the King!’

‘Hoorah!’

‘Are we downhearted?’ cried the Prime Minister, waving his hat and puffing on his cigar.

This continued for about a mile, with unbroken crowds along the side of the roads, well marshalled by alert police officers, all of whom, I noticed, were eager to take a look of their own at the famous visitor. We reached an area of total destruction where even the bulldozers had not yet started work. It was shocking to realize that the undulating, broken mass of concrete slabs, splinter-ended beams, broken brickwork, millions of shards of glass, large pools of water, rampant weeds already poking up through the rubble, had all of it once been people’s homes and places of work. There were no crowds here, probably because there were no homes left, no reason for anyone to be about. We remained on our feet, silent as we passed along the navigable track that was cleared on the edge of the Luftwaffe’s night-time work.

Eventually the car entered a less damaged area and drew to a halt outside a tall Victorian edifice. Apart from a few boarded-up windows and the ubiquitous sandbags, it appeared to be comparatively untouched by the bombs. From a sign near the main gate I saw that the building was Whitechapel Hospital. A squad of uniformed police was waiting in the yard to greet us, saluting as Mr Churchill stepped down. We walked at a smart pace into the building, my injured leg giving me difficulty for the first time that day, but I managed to keep pace. A huge roar was going up: people had crowded into the yard to welcome the Prime Minister, and seemingly hundreds more were leaning from all available doorways and windows, waving and shouting and cheering.

Mr Churchill raised his hat, beamed about in all directions, puffed cheerfully on his cigar.

‘Are we downhearted?’ he shouted to the crowd.

‘NO!!’ they yelled back, waving their flags enthusiastically.

We toured the wards, spoke to doctors, nurses and porters, chatted to patients. Mr Churchill spent extra time in the children’s ward, meeting not only the children but their parents too. At every point his message was the same, endlessly repeated, with only minor variations: ‘We’re going to see it through to the end, we’ll never give up, we’ve got Hitler on the run now; we can take anything he throws at us, he’s in for a few surprises.’

After the hospital we drove to a large school in Leytonstone which had taken a direct hit from a German parachute bomb. After that we drove down the badly bombed High Road in Leyton, where people were crowding on both sides of the street. Wherever there were crowds, Mr Churchill repeated his performance with the hat, the smile and the cigar.

We were back at Admiralty House by lunchtime. With a curt nod to us and a word of thanks Mr Churchill hastened away into the interior of the huge building. By this time I was exhausted after the morning of crowds and noise and the long walks among them. Mr Churchill remained spry and energetic to the end. I was given a light lunch with the other ADCs, then our respective cars arrived to take us home. I went to my room at RAF Northolt and fell asleep at once.