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.’
The words still rang in his ears. He was a diplomat by trade and an intellectual by training, a man who took pleasure in toying with every side of an argument in the manner that a cat plays with a ball of wool. Yet Churchill was a man stripped of any trace of either sophistication or the values Butler held so dear in public life; his speech had been nothing short of vulgar.
‘You ask, “What is our policy?”’ Churchill had declared. ‘I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy,’ he had told them. ‘You ask, “What is our aim?” I can answer in one word: Victory – victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror; victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival …’
Butler was far from certain that he would want to survive in a world of crude simplicities of the sort embraced by Churchill. ‘I feel violated,’ he muttered, his lips wobbling.
His misery was interrupted as Channon returned in the company of the American ambassador, Joseph Kennedy. They were followed by a club steward carrying a tray with three small sherries and an enormous glass of bourbon.
‘So, what are you Three Musketeers up to?’ the American demanded.
If diplomacy was seen by many as a carefully orchestrated minuet, Joe Kennedy could always be relied upon to arrive wearing hobnail boots. He had worn them throughout a career that had carried him through the boardrooms of major banks and into the bedrooms of Hollywood starlets, and he had kept them ever more tightly laced as he had kicked his way into the smoke-filled back rooms of the US Democratic Party where he showed as little loyalty to his President as he did to his wife. He was a man with a roving eye and a slipping tie, and in the two years since his arrival at the Court of St James’s he had come to hate Winston Churchill.
‘Not drinking to Winston and his war, I hope,’ Kennedy continued, waving his bourbon. ‘On the other hand, if all you’ve got is Winston, then I’m not surprised you drink.’ He smiled from behind round tortoiseshell glasses. ‘I’m sure I’m not telling tales out of school with you three when I tell you that even Halifax is complaining,’ he added. ‘Ridiculous working hours, sometimes up till two or three in the morning. This toil and sweat nonsense may sound fine, but what the hell can you achieve in the middle of the night with a man who’s been drinking whisky since breakfast?’
‘Joe, how did you get to be a diplomat?’ Butler enquired provocatively.
‘Funny thing, heard that Winston’s been asking how the hell you got to be a Minister.’
The response brought a flush to Butler’s cheek. He expected to be sacked – his views about Winston and his policies were far from a private indulgence – but he still hadn’t heard, and he found the uncertainty offensive.
‘We live to play another day, Joe.’
‘Not if Winston gets going, you won’t.’
‘You may well be right. But the game isn’t over yet.’
‘So I hear. Fact is, one of the Whips told me that two-thirds of the party would have Neville back like a shot, given half an excuse.’
‘And most of them think that Winston is just the sort of person to provide it,’ Colville added.
‘Not won over by his charms, then, Jock?’ Kennedy enquired.
‘May I put it this way, Mr Ambassador? I’ve never known a Prime Minister to come into office with so many people expecting him to fail – even wanting him to fail.’
‘They don’t want this war. It’s what I’ve been saying all along!’ Kennedy exclaimed. ‘Gentlemen, you go ahead with this fight and you’re gonna get beat. Look what happened in Poland. Look what’s happening in the Low Countries. Just heard from our embassy in Holland that the Luftwaffe is turning Rotterdam into the back side of hell. It’s chaos over there.’
‘Do we have a choice but to go ahead, Joe? I fear Herr Hitler might insist,’ Butler prodded.
‘What are you fighting for, Rab?’ Kennedy barked back. ‘Hitler doesn’t want to touch England, he doesn’t want your empire. Leave him alone in Europe and by Christmas he’ll be sipping tea and chomping through cream cakes with your King, all friends together. Why you ever got involved in this damned war I’ll never understand.’
It was a view that was also close to Butler’s heart. ‘But we are involved, whether we like it or not. What can we do?’
‘Play the Italian card. Hitler listens to Mussolini. Wrap up a couple of your Mediterranean islands as a gift for Il Duce and he’ll whisper whatever you want into Uncle Adolf’s ear. Otherwise you’re gonna end up at war with them both.’
The three Englishmen stood mournfully.
Kennedy finished off his drink in one huge swallow. ‘Still, can’t stand around here all evening. Got other diplomatic duties to perform, strengthening the Entente Cordiale with the assistance of a little French lady I know.’ He smiled and tried to straighten his tie. ‘Musketeers, it’s been a pleasure.’ He waved and was gone.
‘I know I’m a bit of a snob,’ Channon began, ‘but I can’t help feeling he’s right.’
‘Of course he’s right,’ Butler snapped irritably.
‘And what do you think, Jock?’
‘You see this suit I’m wearing?’ It was offensively blue and exceptionally bright. ‘From the fifty-shilling department of Monty