So they had gathered in the Admiralty later that evening, Bracken and Margesson in one room while Churchill buried himself with his papers and maps in the inner sanctum. Bracken and the Chief Whip had bickered and debated, weighing dubious merits against more certain sins, moving from one to the next, pricking a few names, moving others to more minor posts, getting Colville to telephone the news through to the victims while they themselves congratulated the victors. In the end two-thirds of the existing members of the Government were reappointed, only twelve senior offices went to newcomers. Chamberlain remained prominent on the poop deck while Margesson continued in service as the master-at-arms.
But even as they worked, the boat was to be rocked far more brutally than ever they imagined.
Churchill heard it first, on the radio, from an American, a respected CBS correspondent named William Shirer who was based in Berlin. His broadcasts were inevitably filtered through the coarse gauze of the German Propaganda Ministry, but what squeezed past the censors was often useful, helping to know the enemy.
Good evening. This is Berlin …
The voice was flat, reedy, its tones stripped of emotional emphasis as it wowed and fluttered its way through the ether. Churchill tapped a dial; it made little difference. But the message did.
Liège fallen! German land forces break through and establish contact with air-force troops near Rotterdam! Those were the astounding headlines in extra editions of the Berlin papers that came out about five, our time, this afternoon.
‘Colville. Mr Colville!’ Churchill first muttered, then roared. There was a sudden scrabbling in the outer office.
Today was a holiday in the capital – Whit Monday – and there were large crowds strolling in the streets. They bought up the extras like hot cakes. The announcement by the German High Command on the fourth day of the big drive that the citadel of Liège had been captured, and that German – well, the Germans call them ‘speed troops’ – had broken through the whole southern part of Holland and made contact with the air-force troops who’ve been fighting since the first day in and around Rotterdam on the west coast, caught almost everyone by surprise. Even German military circles seemed a bit surprised. They admitted that the breakthrough to Rotterdam, as one put it, came somewhat sooner than expected …
Colville was standing aghast on the other side of the desk. None of this had been mentioned in the night’s situation briefing. To be sure, the Dutch had been talking of ‘modifications’ and ‘confusion’ in the military position, but this …
‘Get the Chiefs of Staff back here. Every man jack of ’em. And find out whether m’Lord Halifax is in the land of the living. If he’s not, drag him out of bed. Tell him there’s a war on!’
Tuesday 14 May. The Reverend Chichester rose before dawn, turning his back on his bed. Sleep had been elusive and, when at last it had come, a river of troubles had run through his dreams, destroying his peace and reminding him of so many unanswered prayers. It had been his birthday on the previous day, his fifty-second, a time for reflection, although it had passed unnoticed by anybody else, apart from a card from his sister. Nothing from Donald.
Everything in his mind kept moving in circles and coming back to the same point. Donald. Even Jennie stared back at him in reproach from the mantelpiece, as if to say there should have been another photograph of their son alongside her. But he hadn’t any recent photos of Don.
The vicarage seemed empty, the hallway too tidy; the kitchen had an unaccustomed echo; even the driveway taunted him. Not so long ago Don’s motorbike, an AJS, had stood there on the gravel, leaning drunkenly and leaking oil. It was an ancient machine and Don had spent many hours repairing it, not always successfully. The Reverend Chichester hated motorbikes. As a young man he’d almost killed himself on one and he was afraid that Don would do the same. So he had objected to the bike. He was trying to protect his son, but instead of a discussion about caring it had been reduced to a shouting match about filthy sinks and oily clothes. Ridiculous. Pointless. Splinters in the eye, for in spite of Don’s offensive language, he knew it was his fault. It seemed he would say anything rather than admit to his son that he loved him.
The previous evening he had returned to the vicarage to discover that his occasional gardener had cleaned up the soiled gravel. It was in pristine condition, no trace of the bike. Every fragment of Don’s memory was being leached from his life, leaving them to stumble around his dreams.
He began to prepare another solitary breakfast, his newspaper propped up above the sink. Across the Channel that lay beyond his kitchen window, a new war was raging. He could see and hear nothing of it, there was little to witness apart from the calm of the sea and the outline of Calais beginning to emerge from its morning veil, but the headlines gave him the story of a ‘Total War’ in which the ‘RAF had triumphed’. One hundred and fifty enemy machines shot down. Good news, great news, God’s work. Set out in The Times.
Yet, as seemed increasingly to be His habit, God moved in ways that left mysteries in their wake. As the vicar pushed aside his breakfast plate, the same newspaper announced that the Belgian army was falling back, the Dutch, too. Yet only yesterday it had announced that the BEF was sweeping forward. Backwards, forwards – this was unlike any war the Reverend Chichester knew.
The Times assured him that the Belgians and Dutch were withdrawing ‘without heavy casualties’.
Which puzzled the Reverend Chichester. For why, in God’s name, if they had suffered no heavy casualties, were they moving back?
Where had they gone, those people who only days before had been smiling, blowing kisses and shouting their encouragement as the 6th had made its way to the front? Now, on the way back, there was no greeting, no warmth, nothing but tired eyes that spoke of concern and even contempt.
Don’s unit were withdrawing to a suburb of Brussels called Boitsfort in a tight convoy consisting of fifty ambulances, water trucks, troop-carriers and other vehicles. A few refugees had begun to appear on the road in front of them with their cars and overladen carts. Progress began to slow, and a sense of fading order crept up on them. The 6th had seen no direct combat yet, but planes had begun to appear overhead, high in the clear sky, and they came from the east. They must have seen the convoy; you couldn’t hide an entire field unit, not with all their bright red crosses painted on the roofs.
They passed a single bomb crater at the side of the road. A dead horse lay beside it, the carcass still smouldering, its stench sweet: the first casualty of Don’s war. And moments later there were others, Belgian soldiers, a group of them at the side of the road, abandoned and bleeding. Some were badly injured from shrapnel wounds. They kept gesticulating towards the sky, but otherwise there was little sense to be had from them in their strange language, and no one seemed inclined to delay in order to discover more. The wounded were loaded into the back of the ambulances and other vehicles. First blood. Belgian blood.
Yet, that evening, Boitsfort displayed the air of a prosperous suburb whose mind was fixed on moving gently into the embrace of nothing more threatening than a glorious summer. The gardens were full of flowers, the restaurants and cafés crowded, the young women gay, even while in the back of Don’s vehicle a soldier was bleeding silently upon the floor. Someone mentioned they were passing near the battlefield of Waterloo.
The 6th drew up in front of an imposing building, the Hôtel Haute Maison. Inside the hotel a dinner-dance was in progress. Most of the male dancers were Belgian officers in freshly pressed uniforms, with women on their arms and champagne at their tables. As the British marched in bearing the bloodied casualties, a woman screamed, but in a moment the surprise was overtaken by a hurried