Churchill grunted and lit a cigar from a fresh consignment from John Rushbrook in New York.
Bracken, Irish-born newspaper publisher and M.P., regarded Churchill fondly from the depths of a sighing leather armchair. He had known him for years, from the time Churchill had moved to the Admiralty after his tempestuous reign at the Home Office. Like Churchill, Bracken enjoyed talking and liked to educate people. His favourite topic was Churchill, youthful adoration was behind him, mature understanding in its place.
He understood the melanchola, veiled from the public, that frequently afflicted Churchill, a legacy handed down from the Dukes of Marlborough but tempered, thanked God, by his mother’s American blood; he understood the flamboyance summoned to smother doubt, the bravado employed to mask fear. ‘You can’t be a hero without being a coward,’ Churchill had once told him.
He believed he knew Churchill better than anyone except Clementine. Not that he wasn’t bombastic, arrogant and impetuous; far from it; but what people didn’t comprehend was his sensitivity – Churchill made damn sure of that.
But what you could never quite cope with was his unpredictability. It erupted now as Churchill, thumbs in the waistcoat of his crumpled grey pinstripe, stared at a portrait of his grandfather, the 7th Duke.
‘What about Joe?’ he said.
‘Joe? Joe who?’ Bracken asked, bewildered.
‘Joe Stalin. I wonder how he views this grovelling policy of ours – if he’s got time to think in between his purges.’
‘I shouldn’t think he’s very pleased. He would like to see the capitalist powers fight each other to a standstill.’
Silence.
Somewhere a clock chimed. Bracken could hear the crackle of Churchill’s cigar as he rolled it between his fingers.
The silence continued. Nervously, Bracken cleared his throat.
Finally Churchill said: ‘That’s a very interesting remark, Brendan.’
But hardly an original one, Bracken thought.
‘Let’s put it to one side for a moment,’ Churchill said. ‘But we may return to it,’ as though they were in for a long session which, Bracken knew to his cost, could last until four am. ‘Don’t think for one second that Stalin, that wily old Georgian, is hoodwinked by Neville’s scrap of paper. He knows that Corporal Hitler is going to wage war and he’s got to decide whom to support. To put it more bluntly, who’s going to win, Germany or us. Who do you think he’ll put his money on, Brendan?’
Bracken thought about it. ‘Well,’ he said, giving his spectacles a polish, ‘he’s been chasing an anti-Hitler coalition for three years.’
‘As indeed he might,’ Churchill said, returning to his perusal of the 7th Duke. ‘In 1936 Hitler was bellowing that the Ukraine and even Siberia should be part of the lebensraum, Germany’s living space. But pray continue, Brendan.’
‘But then again he thinks that we’ve deliberately allowed Germany to re-arm so that she can fight Russia. He must interpret Munich as an inducement to the Nazis to further that aim. On one side he’s got the aggressor, on the other the betrayer. An unenviable choice, Winston.’
Churchill wheeled round, waving his cigar so vigorously that Bracken feared his suspect shoulder might pop out. ‘I’ll tell you what he’ll do first: he’ll sit on the barbed-wire fence and wait to see who looks like winning the war in Spain. It is, after all, a dress rehearsal for the next world war.’
‘Suppose the Fascists win – and that seems likely. It would be very strange to see a Bolshevik going over to the other side.’
Churchill gave a fleeting smile which reassured Bracken who had feared that he was on the brink of a deep depression. ‘I did it once,’ he said.
‘But this is a bit different. Communists siding with Fascists. It’s ridculous.’
‘History is littered with strange bedfellows.’
‘Not strange, grotesque. If Franco wins he’ll be expected to throw in his lot with Hitler. You seem to be suggesting that Stalin of all people will join him. A preposterous notion, if you don’t mind me saying so, Winston.’
‘I don’t mind in the slightest, my dear Brendan, because you are giving rein to assumption. I merely said that Stalin would observe which way the winds of war blow in Spain. If Franco wins – and I have little doubt that he will – then Hitler will be that much stronger. Another prospective Fascist ally instead of a Bolshevik foe in western Europe. Another Italy – although if you’ve got allies like Mussolini you don’t need enemies.’
Bracken said: ‘I’ve reined in my assumption and I still don’t understand. You don’t appear to have contradicted the proposition that Stalin would side with Hitler and Franco.’
‘Ah, then you haven’t reined hard enough. There will be no question of such an unholy triumvirate because Franco, another wily bird, won’t actively side with Hitler, he’ll sit on the barbed-wire fence, too. Do you know what I would do if I were Chamberlain?’
Bracken shook his head. It was, he decided, a gala night for unpredictability.
‘I’d promise Franco that I’d give him Gibraltar if he stayed neutral. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll be in a position to give that promise …’ Churchill sat down opposite Bracken and took a swig of his whisky and soda. ‘But I digress. What I’m saying is that Stalin will wait till the Fascists have thrashed the Reds in Spain, then he’ll throw in his lot with Hitler. You see, Brendan, it’s really the only option open to old Joe.’ Stalin, Bracken reflected, was five years younger than Churchill. ‘He knows that one day Hitler will turn on him and he’s got to delay that inevitable moment until Mother Russia has girded her loins to meet such an attack.’
‘And that will take a few years,’ Bracken remarked. ‘According to estimates here Stalin has purged upwards of 30,000 Red Army officers. Not only that but he’s got rid of nearly all of the Supreme Military Council. Do you know the total estimate of Stalin’s victims, killed or imprisoned?’
‘No,’ Churchill said irritably, ‘but you will tell me.’
‘Something like six million. And you know, of course, what he’s reputed to have said when one of his sons tried unsuccessfully to shoot himself …’ Bracken was beginning to enjoy himself.
‘An educated guess would be words to the effect that he couldn’t shoot straight.’
‘An inspired guess! And did you know—’
‘For God’s sake, Brendan,’ Churchill said, ‘let’s get on with the business at hand.’
They were interrupted by Clementine who came into the room to bid them goodnight, somehow managing to be both dignified and homely in a pink robe. Sometimes she reminded Bracken of a Society hostess, sometimes of Gracie Fields. But contradictions had been thrust upon her by marriage: she should by now have withdrawn into gracious patronage and yet here she was by the side of a man who in his sixties was talking about leading his country in a second world war. Small wonder that there were occasionally wry edges to her smile.
‘Goodnight, Brendan,’ she said, ‘please don’t get up,’ as Bracken sprang to his feet, and to her husband: ‘It’s nearly midnight dear, will you be much later?’ The question, Bracken suspected, was purely academic.
‘Not much longer,’ Churchill said, kissing her lightly. ‘You run along now.’ And when she had gone: ‘What a lucky devil I was, eh, Brendan? I was never much good at the niceties of courtship, you know, but Clemmie understood.’
As if she had any choice, Brendan thought.
Churchill regarded the