Winston’s War

‘It’s a Hochheimer Königin Victoriaberg, from a vineyard once owned by Prince von Metternich. I thought it would be appropriate for you. Full of subtlety, nobility, audacity …’

‘And where did you get this liquid jewel?’

‘From Ribbentrop. He sent several cases back with us from Munich as a goodwill gift.’

‘Always the wine salesman … eh?’

Joachim von Ribbentrop, the German Foreign Minister, had until recently been his country’s Ambassador to London. He had been a natural choice for the post since he was a Nazi of long standing who knew the British capital well, having run a wine business there for many years and established a reputation as an excellent host. He had been – and in many eyes still was – the acceptable face of Hitlerism, and much of London society had beaten a path to the dining table of his embassy in Carlton House Terrace.

‘I was his landlord for a time, you know,’ Chamberlain muttered. ‘He rented my family house in Eaton Place. After I moved in here. Like clockwork with the rent. Always told me – raise glasses, not guns. Good man, good man …’ The rest was lost as he stumbled up the dark stairs of Downing Street.

FIVE (#ulink_0fac5325-5310-5dff-9be2-3320b6b9483f)

Guy Fawkes Night – 5 November 1938.

It was one of those nights that would change everything – although, of course, no one knew it at the time. And as was so often the case Max Aitken, the first Baron Beaverbrook, was to be its ringmaster.

They had gathered together at the summons of the mighty press baron to celebrate the torture and execution more than three centuries earlier of that quintessentially British traitor, Guy Fawkes, who had attempted to destroy the entire Houses of Parliament, King included, by stuffing a cellar full of gunpowder. He had been apprehended at the critical moment with candle in hand, and executed by having his entrails dragged from his still-living body, burnt in front of his face, then having his beating heart plucked out. Sadistic, mediaeval Europe – before the twentieth century turned torture into a modern science of factories and furnaces.

The weather had relented after weeks of skies filled with rain and Roman auguries. A full moon hung overhead, an ideal evening for the lighting of the traditional bonfire which had been constructed in the grounds of Beaverbrook’s country home at Cherkley. The garden and walkways had been turned into a fairy grotto by countless candles concealed in old tin cans, while Boy Scouts from the local troop were on hand to cook sausages and chicken legs over charcoal barbecues and to dispense mulled wine loaded with cinnamon and pepper. They had also erected tents and canvas awnings to provide shelter if the sky changed its mind and turned against them. Beaverbrook, ever the showman, had even instructed that chocolate eggs and sweets should be hidden around the grounds for the children. No one was to be left out of the fun. So to Checkley they had come, the good and the great, the famous and those still seeking fortune, more than two hundred of them wrapped in their furs and astrakhans and silk scarves and hand-warmers, giving thanks for the column inches they hoped they would receive from the Express and the Standard and putting aside how many of those past inches had been cruel and indecently unkind. Yet press barons have no monopoly on unkindness.

‘You are …’ – the Minister paused for thought, but already it was past thought, too late for anything other than gut emotion – ‘being ridiculous, woman. Hysterical. A disgrace to your sex.’

‘Only a man could be so stupid.’

‘Ask anyone. Neville is the greatest Englishman who ever lived.’

‘He makes me ashamed to be British.’

‘You dare talk of shame!’

‘Meaning?’

‘God’s sake, aren’t you tired of climbing into Winston’s bed?’

‘He might yet save us all.’

‘What? The man who’s killed off more careers than Caligula. Who’s filled the graveyards of Gallipoli.’

‘He’s a prophet –’

‘Nigger in a woodpile with a box of matches.’

‘… pointing to our mortal peril.’

‘All the more damned reason for doing a deal with Hitler, then.’

‘You’d deal with the Devil.’

‘I support my Prime Minister. Loyalty to my own. Something you wouldn’t recognize.’

‘I recognize naked cowardice.’

‘I resent that, madam. I oppose your silly war because it will destroy civilization.’

‘War against Hitler may be the only way to save civilization!’

‘Madness. Pure madness. Are you Jewish, or what?’

And all that from colleagues who sat on the same Conservative benches.

It had started with laughter and gaiety and one of Beaverbrook’s little jokes. (He had a notorious sense of humour – some argued that it had been developed to compensate for his notoriously absent sense of fidelity.) He had given specific instructions about the making of the guy that was to be burnt on the fire and it had arrived with some pomp, seated on an old wooden chair decorated with flowers from the hothouse and pushed in a wheelbarrow by a groundsman. The guy was large and overstuffed, as all good guys should be, bits of straw and paper sticking out from an old woollen three-piece suit that had been plundered from the back of a wardrobe for the occasion. Particular attention had been given to the face, which was round, bald, with a scowling expression and an open slit for a mouth. The arms were spread, as though making a speech. The guests who were crowding about Beaverbrook in the darkness applauded its entrance and drew closer to inspect.

‘So, whaddya think of the villain of the piece, Sam?’ The question was delivered in Beaverbrook’s characteristic style, with a broad Canadian accent and out of the corner of his mouth.

Sam Hoare, the Home Secretary and one of the four most powerful men in Government, studied it carefully, his wife by his side.

‘Guy Fawkes tried to blow up every politician in the land. No wonder they remember him, Max.’

Laughter rippled through the guests. They included diplomats and entertainers as well as politicians and press, all gathered around a charcoal brazier for comfort while they waited for the ceremonial lighting of the large bonfire.

‘Fawkes was a foreigner, of course. Spanish,’ someone added from the darkness.

‘Hey, ain’t nothing wrong with foreigners,’ Beaverbrook insisted in a theatrical hokey twang.

‘Just so long as we can ignore most of them, eh, Max,’ Hoare added.

‘But we can’t ignore them, Sam, that’s the whole point.’

The Home Secretary turned, a shade wearily. Even in the darkness he’d recognized the unmistakable trill of Katharine, the Duchess of Atholl and Member of Parliament for the seat of Kinross and West Perthshire. What was the point? He didn’t want any points, not now, he was trying to enjoy himself. For pity’s sake, they all had points, all passionately held and honed to a razor’s edge, but surely this wasn’t the time or the place. Not here. So the Duchess was a long-standing opponent of the Prime Minister and appeasement, they all knew that, an opponent so venomous she had earned herself the nickname of ‘Red Kitty’. She paraded her conscience everywhere, rehearsed her arguments a thousand times before breakfast and again over lunch until her intransigence had pushed her to the furthest limits of the party and, in truth, almost beyond. But Sam Hoare was a party man, loyalty first, and wasn’t going to allow her to forget it.

‘Kitty,’ he hailed his colleague, ‘didn’t see you there in the darkness. About time you came back into the light and enjoyed yourself with the rest of us, isn’t it?’

Kitty Atholl bristled. ‘Enjoyment? Is that what it’s supposed to be about, Sam? Is that why we gave Czechoslovakia away? For fun?’

‘Let’s not trespass on Max’s hospitality …’

‘Don’t mind me, Sam,’ the Beaver interjected. ‘Always encourage a healthy disagreement. Except amongst my employees, of course.’

And so it had begun. A discussion that became a debate that transformed into a character-ripping confrontation in the middle of a moonlit field and in a manner that had been matched across the land for weeks, and yet still showed no signs of exhausting itself. As they faced up to each other a squad of Boy Scouts ran around with jugs of mulled wine to top up the fuel tanks.

‘Hey, how about a toast to the guy?’

‘And death to Ribbentrop. May he die in pain.’

‘You callous witch.’

‘I’m not the one with my head buried in my red box desperately trying to ignore everything that’s happening in Europe.’