Never Surrender

‘You also owe me a week’s wages. You never paid.’

‘I … I …’ The old man began to splutter helplessly. This was leading nowhere. ‘Frau Mueller, you know Hitler better than any man in Britain. I need to understand him in order to crush him. I thought you might want to help in that enterprise, but if I am mistaken then I –’

‘You make it sound terribly personal.’

‘In some respects, it is.’

‘Hurt pride? Because he refused to meet you?’

‘It has nothing to do with pride!’

‘Then what are you fighting for? The British are fighting for no better reason than that you are too proud to admit that at almost every step of the way you got it wrong. Versailles. The Rhineland. Austria. Czechoslovakia –’

‘We are fighting for principle, not pride!’ he snapped, with an undertone of anger.

‘Poland? Poland’s not a principle, it’s a miserable afterthought from the last war that’s been pulled to pieces while you sat back and watched.’

He was beginning to breathe heavily, his teeth clamped fiercely around the butt of his cigar. ‘Well, now we are fighting because Hitler insists upon it, whether we like it or not. You said this was personal. It is. Both he and I have been recalled from obscurity to guide our nations through this hour. I am a Churchill, for all the strengths and faults which that has bred in me. Now I need to know what a Hitler is. And you can help me, if you will.’

‘You are a lot like him.’

‘Like That Man?’ He spat the words out, as though his face had been slapped.

‘Unruly, bad-tempered rabble-rousers, propagandists, nationalists, outsiders.’ She began ticking characteristics off on her fingers. ‘Why, you are both even painters – although in my view you show rather more talent than Hitler. And you both love war.’

‘I do not love war, as you put it.’ They both knew he was lying. ‘And perhaps I have made a mistake in thinking you could help –’

‘There is one difference which I think is very important, Mr Churchill.’

‘And what, pray, is that?’

‘I do not know you well, Mr Churchill, but I have my instincts. As a woman. And I believe you are capable of compassion – love, even. I see it in your eyes, in your words. But Hitler knows only one thing. Hatred. From his earliest days he was conditioned to hate – even to hate his father. Perhaps he hated his father most of all. He was an Austrian, a customs official on the Austro-German frontier, you see, and there is part of me which thinks that the Fuehrer’s first great coup, when he marched his army into Austria, was driven as much as anything by a desire to sweep away his father’s entire life work, to smash down his border posts and erase all traces of him. You think that ridiculous, of course, to suggest that the political ambitions of a man like Hitler could be driven by the memory of a long-dead father.’

Churchill paused before replying. ‘No, I do not think it ridiculous.’

‘Hitler has always needed someone to hate. When he was young it was his father, and now it is the Jews. Never forget how much he hates. But also never forget – never dare forget – Hitler’s extraordinary achievements. He took a nation as broken and decayed as Weimar Germany, where old women and babies starved to death in the streets, and he rebuilt it.’ Her mood had changed; it was no longer a lecture, her words carried growing passion. ‘While you English were clinging to your old ways, he built something new – not just the autobahns and barracks but a new people. He ripped out their sadness and restored their hope. He has raised them high and made them feel all but invincible. Germany is a land where no one starves any more. And what does it matter if a few Jews or Social Democrats don’t join in the general joy? What do a few cracked heads matter when an entire people who had been denied any sort of future have been lifted up and made proud once more? For the happiness of the whole, aren’t a few whispered sacrifices acceptable?’

He suspected she was goading him, but that was what he required, for his mind to be bent into focus.

‘So why did you not accept his bold new world?’

‘To my shame I did. For several years. I was one of those young mothers of Weimar who had starved like all the rest. Do you know how we survived in those years after the war, Mr Churchill, do you have any conception of what it was like? Once a month, every pay day, we hired a taxi to take us to the market – a taxi, not because we were rich but because every moment that passed could be measured in gold. With every breath we took, the money in our pockets grew more worthless, like butter on a hot stove. If we were lucky what had been worth a king’s ransom the previous week would now buy a few essentials, and if we weren’t lucky, if we were delayed, if the taxi was late, perhaps not even that. We stood in line, and prayed that by the time we reached the head of the queue there would still be something left, and that the price wouldn’t have shot out of sight even while we looked on. So in the end you stopped queuing and started pushing, and those that couldn’t push got trampled. We would spend everything we had, everything! Every last pfennig in our pockets. Then we would climb back into the taxi with whatever we had been able to buy and go home. Sometimes we might have meat, sometimes it would be off a cheese stall, other times just vegetables. But whatever it was would have to last us an entire month, until the next pay day, because we had nothing left. Nothing. All my jewellery gone, all our best clothes pawned. Can you understand that? I’m not talking about money for champagne but money for a little sugar and milk and bread.’ Her voice suddenly softened and began to break. ‘Nothing left for school. For medical bills. For heating in winter. And eventually, Mr Churchill, it wasn’t enough even for bread. One day I woke up and discovered I had no more milk for my baby. A week later she was dead.’

‘My heart breaks for you,’ he whispered.

‘No one starves under Hitler. And as long as we ate we gave thanks. We gave money when the Brown Shirts came round with their begging buckets, we gave salutes as their parades passed in the streets and we closed our ears to those noises in the night. When we woke up we might hear whispers that one neighbour or another had disappeared. It seemed a small price to pay for the food on our plates.’

‘So why did you eventually … ?’

She looked into her lap, her fingers running distractedly along the frayed edges of her cuffs.

‘If only I had a simple answer. There was a madness about our lives that infected us all. How mad can you get, driving into starvation in the back of a taxi? You know, Mr Churchill, in the whole of the last war when I was a young woman, I never heard a single shot fired. But under Weimar, shots were being fired all the time – at each other. Our leaders, our opponents, eventually even at the bread queues. Our streets became a battleground, our schools the headquarters. Children grew more used to the sound of gunfire than they were to their teachers’ voices. Instead of carrying around schoolbooks they began carrying around knives and hammers; their sports teams became nothing more than gangs of thugs. Can you imagine how much I and every other mother in the land begged for it to end? Then Hitler came along and made it all seem so simple. It was the fault of the Jews and the democrats. And we asked ourselves, what good was democracy if the water didn’t run and the lamps went dark? Better that we see by the light of burning torches. Our political leaders had been so weak, so false, but Hitler seemed above all that. Different. Exciting. Almost – what is the word? – spiritual.’

‘And we had Stanley Baldwin,’ Churchill muttered in contempt. ‘So tell me, pray, why you put it all behind you. Why did you choose to resist when so many went along with it?’

‘It crept up on you so slowly, what was really happening. Made it so easy to accept. Of course, there were those that had to be punished, the guilty men. The Marxists, the Social Democrats, the Jews. They almost seemed to prove their guilt when so many of them were shot trying to escape. But slowly it crept closer to us all. Everyone became a suspect. We had to give up our friends, our lovers, our beliefs – even renounce Belief itself. You could trust no one. And suddenly there was no private life at all, no space even to think.’ Her head fell to hide the pain. ‘After my baby died I went back to work – as a teacher in the Grundschule, the primary school, where my other child, my son, was a pupil. One day I was supervising in the library when the Brown Shirts came in. Very polite, apologized for the disturbance. But they had come for the Jews, they announced, and started leading the Jewish children out, one by one. I asked what the children had done, and the Brown Shirt leader just looked at me curiously. “Done? They are Jews.” But they were my pupils, my son’s classmates, my Jews, and I demanded to know why they were being taken. The Brown Shirt’s attitude changed; a rage came over his face. “Are you a Jew?” he asked. And I almost fell over in my rush to deny the charge – of course I wasn’t a Jew. I was furious with him, how dare he accuse … ?’

She was silent for a moment, needing to recover herself. When her head came up once more the eyes were filled with tears. ‘After he had gone I realized what had already become of me. I watched as they dragged them all away. I looked at the empty spaces in the library, the schoolbooks still open on the tables, the satchels on the backs of the chairs, and wondered when the Brown Shirts would be coming back for more.’ She leant forward, bent with feeling. ‘No, I can’t pretend I saw it all at that moment, that I became an opponent. I am not a hero, Mr Churchill, and I had no idea where they were taking them. But I knew the Brown Shirts would be back, and eventually they would come for my son, and either he would join them, or be taken by them. This was the new Germany, my son’s Germany, and I wanted to find out more about the man who had made it. That is when I started reading about Hitler, talking about him, studying him. In the end I decided to write about him. A biography.’

‘You were seeking to know your enemy …’

‘My enemy?’ She shook her head. ‘No, he wasn’t my enemy, not at first. The book wasn’t intended to be an attack upon him, I was doing no more than trying to understand. So I started asking questions about him, but that meant that very soon they began asking questions about me. I had become their enemy without my realizing it.’

‘I am so sorry.’

But she had no desire for his pity. Already she had shared with him far more than she had intended. Once again her life was being invaded. It was time to push him back. ‘Did your father know his enemies?’

‘No, I think not,’ Churchill replied, startled at the sudden change of subject. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Because I’ve noticed that when you talk about him you seem … stiff. Formal. Almost anxious.’

‘I loved my father.’

‘No. You were afraid of him, I think.’

Churchill bridled. ‘My whole life has been dedicated to his memory.’

‘Dominated by his memory, perhaps. A bit like Hitler.’

His hand slapped down on the desktop to demand her silence. It landed with such force that the toothpicks jumped in their pot. ‘I asked you here to talk about the Fuehrer, not to offer crass remarks about my father, a man whom you never met.’

‘I’ve never met Hitler.’

And they were back where they had always been.

‘I have no time for cheap comparisons, Frau Mueller. I thought you might help. Will you?’

Her cheeks flushed. ‘Help you? Why should I? I don’t like you, Mr Churchill. I don’t like any politicians. They’ve done nothing but ruin my life.’ She sprang from her chair, not wishing to be near him any longer. ‘What reason could I have for wanting to help you?’

‘Not me personally. Our crusade.’

‘In which millions will die. To save your old man’s pride.’

‘To save both our countries.’

‘I have no country any more.’

‘Then do it for the simple pleasure of proving yourself right – and for the satisfaction of proving That Man wrong!’ He was shouting, although he hadn’t intended to.

‘You and your ridiculous male vanity. You two men will destroy the world with your war. You are so much alike.’

She was already at the door.

‘You will come again,’ he barked, the intonation halfway between question and command.

She had opened the door and was almost out.

‘Please!’ he called after her. ‘I need you.’

She turned, startled. Then she was gone.

THREE

Monday 13 May. Winston Churchill had been Prime Minister for just three days. And on that third day it all began to unravel.

Churchill was striding down Parliament Street, Bracken at his side, distractedly acknowledging the waves and shouted greetings of passers-by as he walked to the House of Commons. His mind was ablaze with doubt. So many thoughts crowded in upon him, so many concerns; in less than an hour he had to address the House of Commons like Brutus in the marketplace with Caesar’s blood still fresh upon the floor. Yet less than four years earlier those same men, in that same place, had inflicted upon him the most profound humiliation any Member could imagine. They had jeered him into silence. It had not been a good speech by any standard; it had been an inappropriate and, if truth be admitted, a slightly inebriated intervention on the delicate matter of the abdication. A foolish speech, but not exceptional for that. Yet it wasn’t the speech so much as the speaker they couldn’t stomach. They didn’t care for Winston Churchill, didn’t trust him, thought that even in the egotistical world of Westminster he rose above all others in being outrageous, unprincipled, unreliable and supremely bloody ungrateful. So they had relished their opportunity to jeer, to wave their papers at him in distraction, to screw up their faces and cause so much noise that he couldn’t go on. He had been forced to leave, head bowed in shame, his speech unfinished. Just like his father before him.

Now he would be facing them as Prime Minister – a Prime Minister that many, and perhaps most, did not want.

‘They will render me their bloody hands, and swear unto me their loyalty, assure me of their constancy, even as they march to the fields of Philippi …’

‘What?’ Bracken spluttered in surprise beside him.

‘Shakespeare, you ill-educated louse. They cheered Caesar, then watched him die at the hands of Brutus. After which they cheered Brutus, before watching him die at the hands of Mark Antony.’

‘Thought he committed suicide.’

‘Don’t quibble, man!’

They passed the limestone sculpture of the Cenotaph, the memorial to the fallen. Churchill raised his hat in respect then clamped it forcefully back on his head. ‘They want Neville back,’ he growled. ‘Even those who voted against him declare they never wanted Neville out; they intended only to shake him up a little, not to shake him right out of Downing Street. He’s not even Caesar’s ghost; he’ll be sitting right beside me this afternoon, watching, waiting.’

‘For what?’

‘For calamity, which may not be far away. For all his faults, Neville is an excellent party man and he still holds the majority in Parliament in the palm of his hands. One wink from him and the House will fall down upon me more certainly than if Goering had sent over every last one of his bombers.’

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.

‘Can you believe it?’ Channon was still protesting some hours later as he stood on the lawn at the rear of the Travellers’ Club. It was early evening; the weather was still glorious. ‘What on earth did all that mean? “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat”,’ he growled in mock imitation.

‘Not the sort of stuff to get the common man jumping for joy, that’s for sure,’ Butler agreed across a glass of sherry.

‘Extraordinary performance,’ Colville added.

‘D’you think he was drunk?’

‘Always so difficult to tell.’

‘Not something you drafted then, Jock?’ Channon enquired. The stare he received in response was so stony he felt forced to leave in search of the bar steward.

‘Truly, Jock, I fear for us all,’ Butler muttered. ‘Winston will say anything if the words take his fancy. We shall be swept away on a flood of oral incontinence.’