When the call-up did eventually come in August 1940 Heath found that his nature was not so very different after all, or at least that physical exhaustion and a common resentment of the iniquities of the lance-bombardier in charge of his barrack room produced a sense of camaraderie and mutual tolerance among the recruits. By good fortune he found a fellow music-lover, a future director of the New York City Ballet, among the other novice gunners at the training camp near Storrington in Sussex; still more remarkably they found that the composer Sir Arnold Bax was a habitué of the local pub. Even without such resources, however, Heath would have found life at Storrington tolerable, almost enjoyable. It was comforting for him to know where he stood in relation to other people, exactly where his duties began and ended. He could not have endured for long his lowly status, the total absence of responsibility, but for the three months of basic training it suited him very well. Given his record, he would have had to do something badly wrong not to be selected for a commission; he made no such blunder and was duly sent as an officer cadet to Shrivenham in Wiltshire. His training there was as straightforward and as uneventful as at Storrington. In March 1941 he was commissioned into the Royal Artillery and posted to a Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment at Chester. For the next three years and two months he shuttled around the United Kingdom, occasionally helping defend Britain’s cities against air attack, more often sitting around waiting for something to happen.
What quickly became evident was that Heath was a good soldier. Whether he had the qualities necessary for success at the highest level was never to be tested, but as a regimental officer he showed himself impressively calm, clear-headed, resolute and with marked organisational skills. One of his few faults, indeed, was a tendency to over-organise. When his battery was to move from the north prior to embarkation for France, for instance, he worked out every detail, even down to the seats the individual men would occupy, and produced a set of instructions so comprehensive that nobody could be bothered to read, let alone implement them. The results, as he ruefully admitted, were ‘completely catastrophic’.11 On this occasion he recognised his failing and resolved to correct it. But he never altogether conquered his conviction that every eventuality had to be prepared for, every problem foreseen. Time and again he was to be disappointed when things did not turn out as he had expected; each time it came as a disagreeable surprise.
At his level at least it was a fault generally on the right side: better too much organisation than too little or none at all. Successive commanding officers paid tribute to his talents. ‘I consider E. R. G. Heath to be the most capable officer I met in any department during the four years in which I had command,’ wrote Major Tyrell, when recommending Heath for a military MBE. ‘He had personality, drive and ability of the highest order. He was quick to grasp essentials and to formulate plans and his determination, energy and enthusiasm guarantee that they shall not miscarry. I find it difficult to present a fair picture of a man in whom I could detect no weakness of character, whose intellectual scope and integrity I could but admire and for whom I feel nothing but respect and affection.’ Colonel Chadd, who was to become a lifelong friend and make Heath godfather to his son, was equally complimentary. ‘At his interview,’ Chadd wrote, Heath told him that after the war, ‘he hoped to go into politics. Within a very short space of time Ted was held in the highest possible esteem by all of us – officers and other ranks alike – and we were quite sure that one day he could be prime minister.’ (Given that this was written in 1946 the officers and other ranks in question were remarkably perceptive.)12
Not everyone was so ecstatic. Tony Race, his site commander when he was posted near Liverpool, found him ‘mature and confident’ and admired his ‘stamina and efficiency’, but felt him to be ‘a little withdrawn. He hadn’t a warm personality.’ But even this accusation – which was to become all too familiar over the years – was denied by his admirers. ‘The men liked him,’ claimed Chadd. ‘He was never impatient with dullards or arrogant to people not so bright as himself.’ When he took over a battery from a major who had commanded it for several years, he was viewed with some suspicion. ‘We were none too happy,’ remembered the orderly room sergeant, James Hyde:
Up to then he had been an administrator. He hadn’t done any fighting worth speaking of…But I think it’s right to say that within a fortnight or three weeks he exercised such a persuading influence…that one found Heath was first class. So far as administration was concerned, he was perfect. The other reason he was first class – and this was to my surprise – was that he rapidly understood the men and their reactions…Within a month or two it was Heath’s battery. The men liked him because they thought he was a fair man.13
He became adjutant of his regiment in March 1942. ‘I imagine life as an Adjutant must suit you down to the ground,’ wrote Kay Raven. She wrote to him regularly throughout the war; letters beginning ‘Darling Teddy’ but rarely venturing beyond the chatty or the gossipy. She was now an officer in the WAAF and in 1944 Heath sent her a photograph. ‘My batwoman asked me if “that was my steady – he looks just like a film star”! Knowing her tastes, you must be a cross between Charles Boyer and Bob Hope. So now you reside on my mantelpiece and greet me in my waking and sleeping.’14 Whether he was her steady was a question which even he would have found it hard to answer. In a letter to Tim Bligh, a Balliol friend who was later to become principal private secretary to Harold Macmillan, he had evidently envisaged the possibility of marriage. ‘I would like to point out,’ replied Bligh, ‘that there are more convenient methods of experiencing the grand passion, and as you should know we can justly claim the title of lady-killers par excellence.’15 The reputation of lady-killer was not one to which Heath aspired, but even if he had considered marrying Kay it would have been a long-term project, not to be contemplated until the war was over. They met rarely, and when they did the meetings, for Kay, generally ended in frustration. ‘I’m awfully sorry about spoiling it the other night,’ she wrote after their leaves had for once coincided. ‘It was the horror of months of going by and hearing nothing of you…Perhaps it won’t be so long before you are back again.’16
By that time Heath had already spent nearly a year in Europe. His last months in England had been marred by a gangrenous appendix, which should have been operated on months before and nearly cost him his life. By the time it was removed he was convinced he was going to die. He wrote, in high emotion, to his parents, ‘It is not possible to thank you for all you have done, for your love, for my schooling, my career, and for the sacrifices which you have all the time made. Everything I have done I have owed largely to my early training and the standards you taught me.’ The tribute was most sincerely meant. Fortunately it never needed to be dispatched. The appendix was successfully removed, though its condition was so revolting that the hospital had it pickled and put on exhibition as a reminder of what should never happen.17
Heath and his regiment crossed the Channel a month after D-Day and fought their way towards Belgium, taking part, on the way, in the bombardment of Caen and the battle of the Falaise Gap. For a time they lingered in Antwerp, then in September 1944 moved on to support the allied forces trying to relieve the airborne troops at Arnhem. Their most serious action, wrote John Campbell in his biography, was keeping open the vital bridge at Nijmegen. ‘Nonsense!’ Heath scrawled in the margin; it is hard to understand why he took exception to the comment, because the action was indeed both bloody and of critical importance.18 The level of casualties among the gunners is usually lower than that in the infantry, but in the advance into Germany Heath frequently saw men die within a few yards of him and was constantly in danger. He never wavered. This officer, said his citation, ‘showed outstanding initiative and devotion to duty…His work was of a very high order and contributed largely to the success achieved.’
His last year as a soldier was spent in Germany. For three months he was in charge of a prisoner-of-war camp near Hanover. ‘I hope my experience and knowledge of the German people helped me to run the show with understanding and fairness,’ he told Professor Winckler.19 He was put in charge of the reconstruction of the city and gave the rebuilding of the opera house top priority. Whether the German population