Churchill's Triumph by Michael Dobbs
And yet another sordid little secret had tumbled forth from those tired lips. The Middle East was a region that had long been the historic preserve of the British. This was the place of General Gordon and of Lawrence, of the battles of El Alamein, Tobruk, Benghazi and Sidi Barani and, above all, of the Suez Canal, the imperial lifeline that connected Britain to the colonies and dominions beyond. This was the spot where, nearly fifty years earlier, Churchill himself had fought and almost been killed in the last cavalry charge the British Army had ever made in anger, at Omdurman. It was a place of so many battle flags, so many British graves, so many vital interests. So what the hell was Franklin up to in the Middle East? And why hadn’t he thought it necessary to let the British know he was going?
Poor, dear Franklin was betraying him. Perhaps not deliberately, perhaps for no better reason than his growing incompetence and infirmity, yet in the end the cause didn’t matter. Betrayal was still spelled the same.
***
Sawyers was pressing Churchill’s trousers. It was what he did when he was upset, some mindless activity that would drag away his tangled thoughts to a world of order and neat creases. He enjoyed the sizzling steam that rose up to warm his cheeks when he placed the iron upon the damp tea-towel and the way in which old, crumpled wool was suddenly rejuvenated with a turn of his wrist. If only he could do the same to Churchill.
Sawyers had never doubted his master, not until now. Oh, of course the man could behave unspeakably: at times he had the manners of a schoolboy and the temper of a castrated boar, and his language could get as ripe as one of Mrs. Landemare’s fruit cakes, but he’d never before doubted the man. Sawyers’s loyalty wasn’t a sham but as deeply ingrained as the polish on the Prime Minister’s handmade shoes. Yet something had gone amiss.
Perhaps it was all this foreign muck they had to eat, the cold, fatty pig that was forced on them even for breakfast, or the pepper vodka that was only marginally more approachable than horse liniment. Or perhaps. . . Sawyers hated to admit it, but the old man was getting—well, just that. Old. Seventy. He kept saying he’d never expected to live that long, that he would die young, like his father who’d closed his innings at forty-five. Perhaps that was why he insisted on living every day as though it were his last and drinking every bottle to its end. Yet the flame always consumes its candle, and it was beginning to show. He no longer bounced out of bed in the mornings, or even after lunch. He had trouble putting on his socks, often developed a temperature, wouldn’t travel without a doctor. The old man had grown brittle, begun to lose his edge. It showed even in his speeches. The age had passed when the world hung on his every word, and now time-servers like Cadogan saw him as little more than—what was the phrase he was using at the moment? A silly old man. Still head and shoulders above the rest, but not what he was. He had given too much of himself, and there comes an end to every man. Worn away by war.
As the butler pressed down still harder with the hot iron, he couldn’t tell whether the drops of moisture that were gathering on his cheeks were condensation or tears.
He pressed another pair of trousers, but it didn’t help. The issue was still there. Winston Churchill was about to break his word. He’d given it to the young Pole, along with his hand, but now he had all but forgotten. And that wasn’t right. That young Pole had a fine spirit—he stood up for himself and had been taken away from his family for far too long. Anyway, the butler felt a peculiar sense of ownership of this problem that had come walking through their door swinging a wrench and a length of old lead pipe.
And it wasn’t just Churchill’s problem. For the Old Man to give his word was something that concerned everyone connected with him, and breaking it would bring shame on them all. Young Nowak had said it was a matter of honor. He was right. Anyway, in Sawyers’s view, Winston Churchill’s word was bigger than any one man. When it came down to it, it was bigger even than Winston Churchill himself.
He knew the boss would regret it, would look back on what he’d done—or not done—as a moment of weakness, just as when he’d ignored what that oily bastard Beria had got up to with Sarah. That was the moment when Sawyers had known the Old Man was off song. What father would do that? Not Winston, not in normal times. He loved Sarah so. And what would Mrs. C. say when she found out? The edge of her tongue could gut a fresh salmon at fifty feet. But it wasn’t the Old Man’s fault: there was simply too much distraction and exhaustion around this place for anyone to withstand.
It was at times like this that he needed his friends. Didn’t have many friends, not here, not anywhere, come to that. Deep down he had always been a bit of a loner, like Sawyers. And if Sawyers felt a sense of ownership of the Pole, his sense of loyalty to Winston Churchill was inexhaustible.
So he wasn’t going behind the Old Man’s back: he was simply going to do something for which, later, the Old Man would be grateful.
Or perhaps not. On second thoughts, he might just blow a fuse, as he so often did when he thought others were interfering, so better simply to do it and do it quietly. No fuss. No fury.
Sawyers weighed the iron in his hand, a splendidly solid sort of thing. Ideal for the purpose he had in mind.
He wiped his cheeks and headed for the bathroom.
***
They had all gathered in the courtyard of the Livadia. There had to be an official photograph to show the world—and particularly the Germans—that the three were as one. They sat in chairs, the Russian in a military greatcoat that seemed a trifle too large for him, Churchill with a lamb’s fleece hat on his lap, and the President swathed in his cloak, looking gaunt, terribly infirm, almost transparent. It was a dark day, chillier than before, and it seemed to soak into Roosevelt’s bones. His hand trembling, he sat quietly, his eyes casting around for the comfort that he couldn’t find inside.
By the time they had returned to the warmth of the crackling log fire and their round table inside the ballroom, general impatience had taken control of the field. This was Roosevelt’s sixth day, he was exhausted and wanted to be elsewhere, and Stalin, too, had grown bored with it all. He knew what he wanted: it was merely a matter of taking it. Only Churchill had any lingering determination to carry on arguing for his interests, but no one was paying him much heed. It’s what happens when a great flame begins to dim. It casts an ever-weaker light, and men no longer fear to walk in its shadow. That’s what was happening to Winston. And to the British.
They were talking about Poland—yet again—and Stalin decided that the moment had come to put an end to all these words and time-wasting, yet when he spoke, his tone was gentle. His shoulders kept shrugging, he waved his pipe in the manner of an old man sitting on his porch.
“Gentlemen, my friends, I sense we are going round in circles because there may be some element of doubt at this table about the intentions of the Soviet Union. Let me put your minds at rest. We have no intention, absolutely no intention, of interfering in Poland’s internal affairs.” He let the phrase stand for a moment to allow it to set, like a pudding. “Those matters are for the Poles, not the Russians—or, indeed, if I may say so, the Americans or the British. I think we’ve all agreed she will have a parliamentary system, a democracy much like. . . ”—he spread his hands as though trying to catch raindrops—“… that of Belgium and Holland. Yes, exactly. And any talk of trying to sovietize Poland is stupid.” He gazed slowly round the table, smiling like a doting grandfather. But this was Stalin, and no one was in any doubt that he was confronting them, challenging anyone to defy his word. At last his eyes came to rest on Churchill. And the smile grew broader.
Churchill had no doubt as to its meaning. Defy me, Englishman, if you dare! With every fiber of your being you think I’m lying, that I don’t mean a word of what I say, but do you have the balls to call my bluff?
This was no longer negotiation but a scene held together solely by old men’s fermenting pride. It was a test of wills, man to man, eye to bloods
“Certainly.”
Laboriously, as though in an amateur drama, Churchill wrote the two names in large print on his notepad and underlined them, preserving them for the historical record.
That irked Stalin. The sugar in his voice was replaced by sarcasm. “After all,” he declared, “it’s not as if we’re one of the imperialist powers wanting to gobble up our weaker brethren. But that’s another point we may come to.”
“What do you mean?” Suddenly, Churchill’s head was up, alert. “What do you mean?” he repeated. He was greeted with silence. Was this another stitch-up, another deceit they were about to inflict upon him? The Pole had said they’d been overheard talking about the Empire. Churchill hunched his shoulders and glowered round the table. His glare jolted the hapless Stettinius into action: he was trying to be helpful, the fool, so he started to mutter something about how it had been discussed that the United Nations should take a look at the issue of dependent territories.
He never got to finish. A growl of almost canine quality emerged from the Englishman. It was partly the weariness of it all, and the humiliation of not getting his own way. They were all doing deals behind his back, even Cadogan and Eden, he suspected. No one listened any more. But they were going to listen now, because Churchill began to shout. To rave. He grew choleric, purple at the gills. He banged the table, a full two-fisted tantrum, and he bloody-well roared. “Colonies! You mean colonies! But I’ll not have it!”
Roosevelt was trying to intervene, flapping his hand, but it was like waving tissue paper in a thunderstorm.
“I will not have one scrap of British territory discussed in this way. We’ve fought this war longer than anyone, fought for freedom, for humanity, we’ve done no crime to anyone and we shall not be put in the dock in order for other nations to wring their hands in hypocritical horror at the most successful and civilizing empire this world has ever known!”
Stalin rose in his seat, as if to walk away. So did Churchill, but only to confront him on equal terms. Still Roosevelt waved his tissue paper.
“We were the only nation at this table not to be kicked into this war. We stood up for principle, fought for honor. And we ask nothing from this war—nothing!—except to retain that honor for which we have fought. No territories, no loot, no new bases, no new borders, no shabby secret deals. Nothing but honor!”
“Winston, Winston, we don’t mean your colonies,” Roosevelt blurted, but the words were lost in the gale.
“Never! Never! Never! Never!” Churchill shouted, turning on the President. “If you mean to squeeze us out, I have nothing more to say, not here. But out there”—he pointed to the wide world that lay outside the tall ballroom windows—“out there I shall object to such perfidy as long as I live.”
“Winston, we’ll sort it out,” Roosevelt wailed, while Stettinius rushed to make assurances that his proposal was never intended to cover the British colonies.
“Then I want it in writing,” Churchill snapped. “I want it written that it excludes the British Empire.”
They tripped over themselves to offer him their assurances, and slowly the volcano subsided. And while they all recovered from the onslaught, an American aide named Alger Hiss quickly typed up a memorandum that gave Churchill everything he required, on that point, at least. So, what Winston had failed to get with reason and argument, he got with bloody temper.
Yet the performance had been more than simply vanity and temper. Churchill had seen Roosevelt cave in on almost every point since they’d arrived in Yalta, wilting under any form of pressure. But Stalin, what of him? The Russian was a master at giving it out—you could see that from the catamites around him who picked up a pencil and scribbled every time he opened his mouth, if only to yawn. But how good was the Russian at taking it? Did he remember what it was like to be at the receiving end? When had the Leader of All the Russias last been confronted by someone who looked him straight in the eye and spat at him? There was an advantage in being British at moments like this, for neither the Russian nor the American were parliamentarians; they had little experience of standing only feet away from opponents who attacked your morals, your memory and even at times your miserable manhood. Could Stalin take that? Churchill had decided it was worth giving it a go—after all, as he later told Sarah, he had bugger-all to lose—and he had got the assurances he required on the colonies. But he still had fish to fry.
So, when the foaming tidal wave of the Englishman’s wrath had once more receded and they were allowed back on to the beach to pick over what was left, it was inevitable that they would trip over the remnants of poor Poland.
“It seems to me,” Roosevelt began, and with evident relief, “that we’re pretty close to a full agreement here. Only a few words and phrasings to get right, drafting matters, really. We’re almost there. Elections. A broad-based government.”
Stalin was about to interject for the umpteenth time that it already had a broad-based government when suddenly he stopped in surprise. Something had startled him. Churchill was smiling. And what the hell did he mean by that?
Churchill was talking about the broad-based government as being a temporary phenomenon, an ornament, but an important ornament. Until the elections. An ornament? Like his ridiculous bow-tie? All these endless rivers of rancor they’d had to cross over the last few days had been for nothing more than a useless, pointless ornament? And he was prattling on about “Marshal Stalin’s usual patience and kindness.” The Russian knew there was a trap here somewhere, but was damned if he could spot it. He began tapping the table with his pipe, a sign of anxiety, as though he were expecting to be pounced on yet again. But Churchill was covering him with honey. Praise for the Red Army and their success in liberating Poland. Congratulations for the decisive manner in which the Marshal had suggested that early elections might be held in a month, and how much he had done to ensure that the President could return home and face the eight million Poles living in the United States with honor.
And for the first time it appeared as though Churchill and Roosevelt might be standing side by side on the issue. Had Churchill given in? Or run rings round Roosevelt? It seemed as if they were both more interested in words—and ornaments—than substance. That was why Stalin had agreed to give anti-Fascists a couple of ornamental posts in the new government, because no matter what the words said it would make no difference: the Lublin Communists would still have control. That was why he’d agreed to elections, because the result was already ordained. And if the only thing Roosevelt and Churchill required in return were sugary words to take home as sweets for the kiddies, it was no skin off the Marshal’s nose. Except—damnit—Churchill was now asking for a commitment to international observers who would ensure that the elections were free and fair. Stalin stiffened. It was a phrase too far.
“I think we couldn’t guarantee that point,” Stalin interjected, sniffing.
“But why not, pray? It is surely within the spirit of everything we have agreed.”
“I think that’s right, Marshal,” Roosevelt said. “The elections, like Caesar’s wife, must be above suspicion.”
Stalin smiled at the President and chuckled. “Caesar’s wife was only above suspicion to her husband. Between you and me, I hear she had other interests, too.”
But his gentle humor was not enough to push aside Churchill. “Yet her reputation for purity kept her husband happy. And all we seek is to establish the good reputation of the Poles and their elect
Further round the table, Roosevelt was nodding in agreement—or was he simply falling asleep?
Stalin wouldn’t accept observers. They would get in the way, make life difficult, perhaps even question the authenticity of the elections and the legitimacy of the government that was going to win them. He couldn’t have that: it would ruin everything. So he cursed beneath his breath, offered a smile, breathed out plumes of tobacco smoke and played for time as he searched for the riposte. Then it came to him, like a bird to seed, and he beamed even more.
“I find myself in total agreement with the President and the Prime Minister,” he declared. “The purpose of the elections and everything else we’ve agreed is to preserve the good reputation of the new Polish government. Unblemished. Like the faithful wife.” He stroked his palms across the tablecloth as though smoothing away wrinkles. “But what would people say if we sent observers? What would they say if we sent observers to pry into the fidelity of your wife, Mr. President? Or Mrs. Churchill? Their presence in the closet would do nothing but arouse mockery and suspicion. It would be an insult—yes, an insult. So the Poles will never accept such a condition.” He shook his shaggy head, but he couldn’t help catching the eyes of the Englishman, which were gazing at him, cold, blue, full of understanding. He knew.
And Stalin moved on quickly, raising his hands theatrically above his head. “But on everything else—Ia sdaius! I surrender!”
“Then I think, my dear Marshal, that I shall let you in on a little state secret.” Roosevelt smiled. “I believe I’ve got just about everything I came for on this matter.”
From the other side of the table, Churchill said nothing but sat and stared, snagging at Stalin’s eye, letting him know. The Marshal stared back, claiming victory. But very slowly, and with an expression just less than a smile, Churchill shook his head.