‘You mean twist a few arms. Break a few legs.’
‘I’m sure just a word in the right ear would be sufficient,’ Halifax insisted.
‘Hey, but half of Hollywood is run by the sons of Israel. Fiddling their own tune. What can you expect …?’
Their discussion was interrupted by a string quartet starting up. Something Middle European. Probably Bach. Coincidence, of course, but to the Queen it seemed like a heavenly fanfare, for at that moment the Prime Minister himself entered the room, dressed for dinner with his wife Anne on his arm.
‘Ah, Neville,’ the Dowager Queen fluttered, shaken from her sherry, ‘it’s Blessed Neville. At last! Now we can all rest in peace.’
Neville. Blessed Neville. The saintly Neville. Everywhere he goes his name is on their lips and he is acclaimed from all sides. Peace – and praise – in his time. A task completed, a world saved. And a point proved. How ironic it is that of all the generations of mighty Chamberlains, he should be the one to make his mark, and how grotesque that, after what has been said in his praise, he should still feel insecure. But Neville has been raised in the shadows, almost a political afterthought, the son of Joseph and half-brother of Austen, both more obviously eminent than he. And yet neither made it to 10 Downing Street. But he has. He may not have wits as quick or tongue so lyrical, but what he lacks in natural gifts he has made up for with persistence and hard work – some call it blind stubbornness, a determination that has left him grey and close to the edge of utter exhaustion. His body has arrived at the point where cold iron grips him inside at night, and still lingers there in the morning. He has needed every ounce of that stubbornness and self-belief to enable him to carry on, but carry on he must. The peace of Europe depends upon it. So does the good name of his family.
He is still feeling cold to his core as he drives – rather, is being driven – back from Sandringham House. The applause of the guests is ringing in his ears, the warmth of the King’s handshake still upon his palm, but by God it’s cold at night in these Fens. He wraps himself more tightly in the car blanket and tries to find comfort on the leather seats of the Austin. He wishes he could sleep, like his wife beside him, but sleep has learned to avoid him. It is dark outside, as it was when he flew back from Germany. He had never flown before but three times now he has made the trip, long and uncomfortable, like being thrown around in a tumbrel as it crosses uneven cobbles. But it has been worth the pain. As he flew back that last time along the Thames towards London, he realized he was following the path the bombers might take. And there below him, in all its electric splendour, had sat London and its millions of men, women and children – his own grandchild included, born just days before he left – waiting. Waiting for him, waiting for Hitler, waiting defenceless for whatever might be thrown against them. But now there isn’t going to be a war. And he hopes never to have to go up in an aeroplane again.
He knows there are those who mock him, but only the types who would have mocked Jesus himself. Behind his back they call him the Undertaker, the Coroner, but not to his face, not any more. Even Hitler had shouted and stormed at him, his spittle landing on Chamberlain’s cheek, and Horace Wilson had told him that during one of his private interviews in Berchtesgaden the Fuehrer had become so agitated that he had screamed and fallen to the floor in a fit. He is the commonest little dog, the German leader, no doubt of that, but if he is half-mad then there is also the other half, and at least he is a man of business. And he, Neville Chamberlain, has done business with him – ‘the first man in many years who has got any concessions out of me,’ as Hitler told him – and he has brought back a piece of paper bearing his signature on which the lives of hundreds of millions of Europeans depend. Herr Hitler has given his word.
The visits to Germany have had their lighter moments, of course. When he arrived in Munich and stepped down from the plane, an SS guard of honour had been waiting ready for inspection. With skulls and crossbones on their collars. What, he had wondered, did they signify? Anyway, as they came to attention he remembered that he had left his umbrella on the plane and kept the SS waiting while he retrieved it. The great German army – held up by an umbrella! And they accuse him of having no sense of humour.
He has achieved more than merely an absence of war, he has built the foundations for peace – a peace in which Britain will be at the heart of Europe, with real influence, helping shape its future rather than simply watching in impotence as a resurgent Germany grows increasingly dominant. “Proaching Cambridge, sir,’ the driver announces – God, miles still to go. His thoughts turn to his half-brother, Austen, and the Nobel Peace Prize he had been awarded for his efforts in bringing the nations of Europe together. And he wonders whether two brothers have ever separately won a Nobel Prize before. Not that he has been awarded the Peace Prize yet, of course, no point in jumping the guns (although he has, quite literally). But his brother had never had a poem dedicated to his honour by the Poet Laureate, John Masefield:
‘As Priam to Achilles for his son,
So you, into the night, divinely led,
To ask that young men’s bodies, not yet dead,
Be given from the battle not begun.’
‘What was that, darling?’ His wife, Anne, stirs, woken from her sleep.
‘Sorry, my dear. Must’ve been talking out loud. Rest a while longer. Still a way to go.’
And what had Queen Mary told him? Over dinner she took his hand – yes, actually touched him – and said she had received a letter from the Kaiser himself in which he had said – oh, the words burned bright – that he had ‘not the slightest doubt that Mr Chamberlain was inspired by heaven and guided by God’. It makes him feel unbearably humble. He is sixty-nine, rapidly wearing out, undeniably mortal, yet with the hand of a Queen on his sleeve and his God at his shoulder. Still some, even within his own party, deny him. What would they have him do, for pity’s sake? Cast humanity aside and launch upon another bloody war? What in heaven’s name would they have him fight with? A French air force without wings? A Russian army with no scruples? Those people, that rag-bag of political mongrels around Churchill – armchair terriers who have urged him to introduce conscription, not just of men but of capital, too. Suggested he should take over the banks and much of business. Control their profits. Insanity! Doing the Bolsheviks’ work for them. But what could he expect of Winston, waving around his whisky and soda, desperately trying to obliterate the memories of his own manifold failures as a military leader. They would carve Gallipoli upon Churchill’s gravestone, along with the names of the forty thousand British soldiers who were slaughtered there. Herr Hitler had called Churchill and the other warmongers ‘moerderen’ – murderers. He had a point.
The car is rolling down the A10 now, his thoughts rolling with it, past the acres of glasshouses that carpet the Lea Valley, approaching the outskirts of Cheshunt. The anger has warmed him inside but he remains exhausted almost to the point of despair. The driver slows to take a bend and through the darkness the Prime Minister can see the outline of a church, and a notice that announces it to be St Clement’s. Oranges and lemons, said the bells of St Clement’s … And St Martin’s, the Old Bailey, Shoreditch, Stepney, Old Bow. The candle is here to light him to bed. And here comes the chopper to chop off his head – chip, chop, chip, chop – the last man’s dead! In his tormented mind, Chamberlain has a vision. The heart of London has been ripped out by bombers, the church spires are burning like funeral pyres, and in their light he can see Winston Churchill, astride it all, holding the axe! Chip – chop – chip – chop. Oh, but this is no children’s game, there is no need for him to run away. Chip – chop – chip. He thinks he can hear the methodical rhythm of the axe as it falls, but it is only the beating of the car engine. His body aches, his mind is swimming with fatigue