Michael Dobbs - Never Surrender

Churchill strode on, his cane flying out in front of him, revealing remarkable energy. Although Bracken was more than a quarter of a century younger, he was having trouble keeping the pace.

‘Can it be that bad, Winston?’

‘You yourself reminded me of the doleful circumstance that I have not a single friend in my own War Cabinet and precious few in the Government as a whole.’

‘There have been a few mutters, of course. Some of the old sods saying that if they’re forced to share power with socialists then the war’s already been lost, that sort of nonsense. But –’

‘I know, I’ve heard. But I thought you were supposed to keep me informed of such things,’ Churchill accused.

‘I thought you had more important matters on your mind. Where did you hear?’

‘It is not widely known – and it must not become widely known – that Mr Chamberlain had a most suspicious mind. Didn’t trust his colleagues, not a bit. So he had their phones tapped.’

‘Bastard,’ Bracken exclaimed in appreciation.

‘It is, of course, illegal, unethical and entirely inappropriate. It is also unfortunate that he left office in such a hurry that he forgot to cancel the phone taps. As a result, yesterday evening I, as his successor, received a large file of transcripts.’

‘Must have made entertaining reading.’

‘They made most depressing reading,’ Churchill snapped. ‘Most of my Ministers appear to have the loyalty of maggots. It appears I run a Government worthy of little more than being fed to the fishes. Incidentally, I have withdrawn the tap on your own phone –’

‘What?’

‘And instructed that your substantial file be condemned to the fire.’

Bracken’s face grew ashen. He was perhaps the most private of politicians, an enthusiastically unmarried man who revelled in the intrigue surrounding others’ private lives while using his considerable personal fortune to protect his own. But phone taps? For how long? And how much did they know? In a pace he had resolved never to trust his life to the telephone again.

‘You look as though you’ve seen a ghost,’ Churchill growled, amused at his friend’s discomfort.

‘Have to say I feel a little like Brutus.’

‘Ah, but it is I who must go to the marketplace and address the mob.’

‘What will you say?’

‘I have never been more uncertain. I pray for inspiration …’

They stood on the edge of Parliament Square waiting for the traffic to clear. The edges of the pavement were daubed with thick white paint to make them visible in the blackout, and the traffic lights stood obscured, showing nothing but faint crosses on their lenses. Three elderly women were waiting with them and they turned to wish him well; automatically he raised his hat once more.

‘We’re with you, Winnie,’ a passing taxi driver yelled through his window.

‘Ah, the people, the people,’ he muttered mournfully to Bracken.

The traffic thinned and they set off toward the Parliament building until, in the middle of the road, Churchill came to an abrupt halt, smacking the silver top of his cane into the palm of his hand.

‘But perhaps that is it, Brendan. The people. The marketplace. And ghosts …’

It meant nothing to Bracken who, mystified, shuffled his companion beyond the reach of the advancing traffic.

‘They are the answer, Brendan, the people.’ The cane smacked down once more. ‘Forget Brutus, think of Mark Antony. An appeal over the heads of the conspirators. Trust the people. Just as my father always insisted. That was the rock on which stood his entire career.’

Bracken knew this was balderdash. For all the father’s wild protestations about democracy, at the first opportunity Lord Randolph had cast aside his radical ideas and grabbed hungrily at Ministerial office. It was another of Winston’s romantic myths and Bracken considered telling him so, but thought better of it. The old man had been in such a fragile mood.

‘But …’ Churchill seemed somehow to deflate. ‘How can I expect their loyalty when I have nothing to offer them but calamity?’

‘Why not surprise them? Tell them the truth.’

‘The truth is too painful.’

‘Not half as painful as all the lies they’ve been fed and all the easy victories they’ve been promised.’

‘I’m not sure I can offer them victory of any kind.’

‘You must. Otherwise they won’t follow and they won’t fight. But offer them the scent of hope and they will give you everything.’

They were at the gateway to the Palace of Westminster; a duty policeman saluted. Bracken’s mind raced. He was no intellectual but he had an unfailing capacity for borrowing arguments and detecting what others – and particularly Winston Churchill – needed to hear. Frequently the old man wanted to argue, to engage in a shouting match that would see them through dinner and well into a bottle of brandy. But this was a different Churchill, a hurt, mistrustful Churchill, a man who needed bolstering, not beating.

‘Winston, I’ve never fought in a war, while you’ve fought in several. Always thought you were a mad bugger, to be honest, risking your neck like that. But this I do know. War has changed. It’s no longer a matter of a few officers and a handful of men charging thousands of fuzzy-wuzzies. It involves every man in the country, women and children, too. Modern war is people’s war, and the people are as likely to die in their own homes as they are on the front line. They have a right to be told the truth. You’ve got to trust them.’

They had reached the threshold of the Parliament building.

‘Anyway,’ Bracken added, ‘you’ve got no other bloody choice but to trust the people. Nobody else trusts you.’

Churchill forged ahead once more, the cane beating time, his eyes fixed upon an idea that was beginning to rotate in his mind and spin aside so many of the doubts that had been plaguing him. His concentration was total and he offered his friend no word of thanks or farewell. His colleague was left staring at his disappearing back.

‘Remember – like Mark Antony,’ Bracken called after him.

‘Like my father,’ he thought he heard the old man reply.

When, later that day, Churchill entered the Chamber of the House of Commons from behind the Speaker’s Chair, it was packed. For two days and nights of the previous week this same place had heard protestations and denunciations of Neville Chamberlain so terrible it had caused his Government to fall. Now, like a wicked child caught in the act, it protested its innocence.

As they spotted Churchill making his way towards his place, there were those on the opposite side of the House who cheered and waved their papers in the traditional form of greeting. It scratched at their socialist hearts to show goodwill towards a man such as this, but there were the common courtesies to be observed. Yet from his own party, which was more than two-thirds of the House, there came nothing but embarrassment. No one stood to cheer, few hailed him, most had suddenly found something of captivating interest amongst their papers or in the conversation of their neighbours.

Moments later, it was Neville Chamberlain’s turn to enter and walk the same path, squeezing past the outstretched legs of others until he had found his place on the green leather bench beside Churchill. And as they saw him, his colleagues offered an outpouring of sympathy so vehement that they hoped it might wash away any mark of their guilt. He had last left this Chamber as a condemned man, and already he was a saint.

The House was like an excitable and over-bred greyhound; at every mention of Chamberlain they leapt up and barked their loyalty, while as Churchill spoke they crouched in anxiety, their tails between their legs, as he treated them to one of the most brutal and honest expositions ever offered by a Prime Minister at a time of great crisis. Many, it seemed, simply did not understand.