Sean Gabb: The Churchill Memorandum

We were rising higher. But there was a laboured sound of the engine, and the roof below seemed to be pitching like a turbulent sea. The pilot flicked a couple of switches and pulled frantically on a lever. I held on grimly to the tubular steel of one of the chair supports as we plunged again and twisted, Now, we were somehow ten and then twenty feet above the roof, and were moving across it. With more pulling of levers, the strangely arthritic helicopter swayed again, and I was looking down into blackness. I tried to pull myself properly up, but found that I had no control over any of my limbs. My hands were clamped immovably about the steel support. I looked up at Pakeshi. Holding on with one hand, he had his gun in the other, and was holding it as steadily as he could at something outside. I followed the direction of his arm. Back on the roof, I could see Macmillan. He’d got onto his knees. His hands were pressed against each side of his face, his mouth opened in a long, horrified scream that I couldn’t hear.

There was a sudden crack, and the helicopter spun out of control.

“We’ve lost the tail rotor,” the pilot screamed. He pulled again and again at his levers. It was to no effect. Every two seconds, I could look out at the roof. Now increasingly distant, Macmillan still knelt there, his hands raised again in despairing supplication. We were moving away. But we were spinning about and about as if on an out of control funfair ride. I remembered Foot’s invisible light show. If the pilot hadn’t been made aware of it, I was in no position to tell him. Would one of those beams shear us straight in two? I tried to shout a warning, but no words came out. Pakeshi wrestled again with one of the crates. Again, it wouldn’t shift.

As we rose higher, I looked back for another two second inspection of the roof. It was now buckling and folding with a motion entirely of its own. On one spin, Macmillan was still there. On the next, he was gone. I couldn’t see what happened next. Foot had been right to doubt if there would be a fireball. But I felt the shockwave. It hit us like a tennis racket strikes a ball. Still spinning round and round, we now turned over, and, with the sudden acceleration, I felt as if my innards were being forced into my chest. Suddenly, all our lights went out, and I had the sensation that we were falling.

I heard Pakeshi chanting something in a loud and oddly calm Hindi. The pilot was shouting encouragement at himself as he pulled and pushed on controls that might as well be attached to nothing at all. I felt the scraping of tree branches on the glass bubble that contained us. With a sickening lurch that tore me from my grip on the steel support and sent me into a somersault that ended with a smash into one of Foot’s boxes, our descent stopped, and there was silence. Then, after a moment’s apparent equilibrium, we turned on our side and fell again. It must have been no more than a second before we hit the ground. It seemed an age, nonetheless. Feeling like a bug that’s been squashed underfoot, I was pressed harder and harder against a new place on the floor. The last I recall is a burst of incredible light inside my head.

“But he must be alive,” I heard Vicky sobbing as if from a great distance. “He can’t be dead. He really is the most beautiful writer Daddy ever contracted. His skin—his skin is so wonderfully smooth.” I felt a hand thrust inside my shirt and take hold of my left nipple. It squeezed hard, and I felt long nails scratch against my chest.

“I do assure you, my dear, young woman,” Pakeshi burbled happily—“I assure you on the authority of more certificates than the excellent Major Stanhope has had time to inspect, that my patient is very much alive. I shall, of course, feel happier once he is on a stretcher. But I do have the highest confidence in his capacity for survival.”

I opened my eyes and tried to smile. Vicky fell back with a little scream. So far as I could tell, I was lying on damp earth. I could smell Pakeshi’s foul, curry-laden breath somewhere close in the darkness. I blinked as a torch was shone into my face. Then the beam was turned away, and I could see Stanhope’s grinning face above me. For the first time, I noticed how the grey hairs of his moustache began deep inside his nostrils.

“Is it over?” I asked weakly. The large face twisted into a broader smile.

“It is over, my lad,” he boomed at me. “And, by God, you’ve done us all proud. You’ve done your duty to Queen and Country—and more than that besides.”

Big Ben was striking eleven as I presented my letter to the doorman at the Foreign Office. The uniformed man sat up and saluted me, He pressed a button on his telephone, and someone else came over to take my hat and coat. I ignored the offer of help and walked slowly towards the lift. I’d left my walking stick in Stanhope’s club. It hadn’t matched the blue of my suit, and I hadn’t realised the effort involved in walking even a few hundred yards. But I got to the lift, and even managed a smile at the attendant as he pulled the doors shut.

Unpacked boxes of paper heaped on every available surface, Enoch Powell greeted me at the door of his office. We shook hands and made some desultory conversation about the state of my health. Then he guided me across to an armchair placed before his desk. I winced from the undrugged pain of all my bruises and cuts and settled into the soft upholstery. Powell stood over me with his desk lighter. I pursed still swollen lips as I sucked on the Capstan and waited for the faint wavering of shapes and colours about me to settle.

“Dr Markham,” Powell said in his intense Midlands accent, “I am most grateful that you were able to leave your bed and attend on me with such promptness.” I took out my cigarette and smiled carefully. It was Monday the 16 March, and the wireless in the carrying chair that had brought me here had been carrying reports from Berlin of the twentieth anniversary commemoration of Hitler’s death. The flags in the Mall had been at half mast, and there was a small gathering of elderly national socialists shouting back at some half-hearted Communist Party protestors.

I looked at Powell. He seemed very pleased with himself. Well he might, I supposed. Halifax still wasn’t back from Africa, but news of Powell’s transfer from the India Office had been the lead story in the previous evening’s news. If the official gazetting would have to wait another few days, Powell was to all intents and purposes already the new Foreign Secretary. He sat at what had been Macmillan’s desk, a large portrait of Castlereagh behind him. It looked across at a portrait of Canning on the far wall. I twisted in the chair to find a point of least discomfort and tried for another smile.

“You will appreciate, Dr Markham,” he continued, “that your services cannot be officially acknowledged. Even so, they have been considerable, and I am glad you are able to be here this morning to receive the private thanks of Her Majesty’s Government.” He paused and tried for a smile as his eyes looked straight through me.

“Since this meeting is covered by official secrecy,” I said, “do you think you might be able to tell me something of what you were up to?” As if I’d accused him of dipping into the church collection, he raised his eyebrows. I took another suck on my Capstan and looked unwaveringly back. “Obviously, there was no Churchill Memorandum,” I added. “At least, if the pages Macmillan had were genuine, what you got your agents to plant on me in America was a forgery. Can I suppose it follows that there were no Pressburg Accords—no shameful secrets about the destruction of America? Was all this just a game you were playing with Macmillan—a game you’ve now won.”