WC02 - Never Surrender

by Michael Dobbs

  SIX

  At around ten o'clock on the morning of Monday 20 May, four men gathered outside the door of a bed sit at 47 Gloucester Place in London's Marylebone. It was the home of a young American, Tyler Kent.

  Kent was twenty-nine, a clean-cut American with excellent academic credentials. He spoke several languages, had been born in Manchuria, had spent several years in Moscow and claimed to be related to Davy Crockett. He was also a cipher clerk at the US embassy.

  Two of the men who stood outside his door were detectives from Scotland Yard, another was from MI5, and the fourth a senior official from the embassy. When they knocked, they heard scuffling, and were told by a male voice that they couldn't come in. They broke down the door and found Kent in a state of undress with a young woman, his mistress.

  They also found the most extraordinary hoard of diplomatic papers. Stuffed inside a cupboard and a large leather suitcase they found 1500 embassy cables, two photographic plates and a pair of duplicate keys to the embassy's code room. The cables contained some of the most sensitive messages to have passed through the embassy in recent months, including what was known as "Naval Person' correspondence the private messages Churchill had sent to Roosevelt. It was believed that within days of being sent they had all found their way into German hands.

  Kent's arrest was the most extraordinary affair. It was the first (and only) time in American history that an embassy official's diplomatic immunity from arrest had been waived. Permission for this had been granted two days beforehand by the ambassador himself.

  When Kennedy had first been told about the spy in his embassy, it had placed him in a quandary. Any scandal would reflect badly on him, particularly since he himself was often accused of reckless chatter. He was always being quoted by the Nazi-controlled German News Agency. Then there was the added complication of the mistress, which would inevitably draw further unhelpful comparisons. And although Kennedy couldn't recall ever meeting Kent, there were only two hundred employees at the embassy and nobody would believe there wasn't a close personal connection. Kent and Kennedy would be wrapped up in it together.

  Yet, as he listened to the story, Kennedy began to find comfort. There was even an attraction in allowing Kent to be arrested. In the first place it would disseminate the papers found in his cupboard ever more widely, which would make it clear to even the slowest of wits that America had no intention of becoming embroiled in yet another of Europe's monstrous screw-ups. But there was more. Amongst those papers were internal embassy notes recording American opinion about Churchill himself. Like Roosevelt's reflections, shared with Kennedy a few months beforehand, that "I have always disliked him since the time I went to England in 1918' when Churchill had, in the words of the American President, 'acted like a stinker'. Or the views of the senior diplomat

  Sumner Wells, who after a tour of European capitals had concluded that Churchill talked too much and drank even more. These were personal opinions, private treasures, not intended for public display, but if Scotland Yard insisted on breaking open the vaults there was little that could be done to stem the resulting gossip. And Kennedy knew about gossip. His own conduct had so often been the subject of gossip, which was difficult for a man whose wife was a pious Irish immigrant wedded to the idea of fidelity and interminable prayer. On a petty level it seemed like an opportunity to spread the load a little, while on an altogether higher plane it would provide ammunition for those who wanted to cut Churchill out of the picture and bring the war to a swift conclusion. Hell, the more the ambassador thought about it, the better it got.

  There was also the consideration that Scotland Yard was investigating a couple of matters involving clumsy investments in which Kennedy's name had an infuriating habit of cropping up. Nothing illegal, of course, but .. . well, distracting. It wouldn't do to upset the men from the Yard.

  So, at their request, he made a little history and permitted Tyler Kent to be arrested.

  The flat landscape of the Pas de Calais just north of Bethune allowed you to see for miles. And to be seen. The convoy had been attacked twice that day, despite the vivid red crosses on the tops of the ambulances. They'd lost their commanding officer and many others, dead or left behind wounded. The 6th was down to eleven crowded vehicles and its last second lieutenant, with Don driving the only remaining jeep after it had turned over and rolled upon its driver in the raid an hour ago. It was still possible to see the wreckage of the convoy burning several miles behind them and, up ahead, long trails of smoke from other pyres. Somehow being a noncombatant hadn't seemed so bad when he'd discussed it with the Tribunal. A worthy alternative, helping those in distress, something he could do with pride. No one had mentioned sitting on an open French road in bright sunlight while half the Luftwaffe took free shots at him.

  He hated not so much the thought of dying but of dying disgustingly, like the young officer. Somewhere, back along that long road lined with casualties and crosses, Don had lost the sense of buoyancy that went with being a teenager. His bowels were liquid, his legs had turned to old iron and he was gripping the steering wheel too tightly. He was scared. He was also angry. Maybe his father had been right.

  The convoy was stopping. Evening was casting long shadows as they drew up to a crossroads. No signposts, but Merville, their destination, had to be north. From the east a motorcycle approached throwing up a large cloud of dust. Someone was in a hurry. The driver halted, wiped the sweat and embedded flies from his face and told them in a flat Canadian accent that everyone was falling back towards the ports. Merville wouldn't be any damned good, not by the morning.

  He also told them of a wounded airman, French, whose parachute had become entangled in trees off the road a couple of miles back. He was injured, but not badly. Couldn't walk, a broken ankle, perhaps. He'd been left propped up against the tree awaiting help. Or the Germans, if they got there first. Yet there had been reports that Goering was threatening to execute captured French pilots in retaliation for what he claimed was the shooting of German pilots while they were still strapped in their parachutes. Ten French for every German, he had promised. So it didn't seem much of an option, leaning against a tree waiting for Harry Hun.

  The light would be gone in an hour, but it would only take twenty minutes to reach him, ten in anything light like a jeep. Don spoke a little French. He volunteered to go.

  Life is made up of a million insignificant fragments that fall in a manner out of our control and often beyond comprehension. A decision is made, a hand is lifted, a life changed. Don gunned the engine and disappeared.

  The trees were easy to find, as the Canadian had promised. They stood in isolated line like so many that seemed to be scattered aimlessly across the French countryside. The Frenchman was propped between the bulging roots of a tall poplar, his face drained grey with pain, his left ankle twisted awkwardly, the canopy of his parachute billowing in the branches high above his head.

  "Hello, chum," Don greeted, reaching for his flask. "Er .. . vous avez un probleme?"

  "Ah, the English have arrived. At last. With water. But where were your planes?"

  "Busy, I expect," Don muttered, taken aback at the aggression and the Frenchman's very passable English.

  "But not busy in France. Or does the R.A.F only fly in the rain?"

  "Look, do you want a lift, or have you got something else planned for this evening?"

  The Frenchman gave a Gallic shrug of contempt. "To the next town. If that is not too much trouble. I shall not need to bother you for long."

  For a while, the pain seemed to silence the Frenchman. Don gave him morphine, bound the injury then helped him onto his one good leg and led him to the jeep. He leaned against the side, breathing heavily from the effort and wiping sweat from his forehead. It was then that they heard the noise a terrifying mixture of roaring motors and mechanical aggression that within moments seemed to have engulfed them. Both on the road and in the air above them, mighty machines swept past them in the direction of the convoy.


  It was a matter only of moments. First the Messerschmitts, then the pounding of five-centimetre guns from panzers as they hurtled along the road. The convoy huddled round the crossroads like a target in a cross wire Don and the French airman watched as it was overwhelmed and annihilated. Men and ambulances reduced to a million insignificant fragments.

  The panzers did not stop. Neither did the armoured units that followed, not until darkness had fallen. When at last they felt they could risk it, Don and his reluctant ally edged quietly out from the trees. The horizon to the east had been turned into a sheet of flame. They drove west.

  Colville rapped cautiously on the bedroom door. It was more than two hours after midnight. He knew Churchill would still be awake.

  The sight that greeted him was extraordinary. Churchill was standing beside his bed, naked except for a silk vest, with a fresh cigar in his mouth. Slowly he removed the cigar and stared at Corville through a meandering fog of smoke.

  "What is it, Jock?"

  It was the first time he had addressed Colville in any manner other than formally, but it was difficult to insist on formality when your trousers were hanging over the back of a chair.

  "We've at last managed to get through," Colville replied. It had been a chaotic day with all the telephone links to France cut. For many hours the government in London hadn't the slightest idea what was happening across the Channel and, as the evening had grown longer, Churchill had grown increasingly depressed. What little news was available contained no crumb of comfort, and the holes in their knowledge had come to be dark pits of gloom.

  "And?" Churchill demanded, sensing the younger man's reluctance.

  Colville tried, but his throat was parched through want of sleep. It came out as no more than a whisper.

  "Abbeville."

  "Oh, my," Churchill gasped, sitting on the bed. "Abbeville - Abbeville," he repeated. "You realize what that means, Jock? They've reached the Channel. We are cut off. That Bloody Man has sawn our great alliance in two."

  It was worse than that. French resistance had melted like butter, allowing the Germans to pour through the gap so that the BEF was now separated not only from the bulk of the French army but also from its own supplies. Only three Channel ports were left under their control Boulogne, Calais and Dunkirk at the most northerly tip of France. Abbeville was barely a day's drive away.

  The old man had tears in his eye. He seemed to be looking at a photograph of his father that he kept by his bedside.

  "But we shall fight, Papa, we shall fight," Colville thought he heard him whisper, before he closed the door behind him.

  "Heard you were half Red Indian, Chips."

  "Oh, at least half, my dear ambassador," he replied jauntily. "Bareback is my favourite style." Channon squeezed his knees and his mount broke into a gentle canter. It was an extraordinary thought: Channon was the most immaculately presented of Englishmen, from his clipped Oxford accent to the carefully folded silk handkerchief in the breast pocket of his riding jacket, yet he had been born in Chicago. As Kennedy had once said unkindly of him, he had given the concept of 'going native' an entirely fresh meaning.

  "You'll need more than a goddamned horse to get yourself out of this mess," the diplomat called after him. "Wouldn't you say, Rab?"

  The three of them were riding through the early morning on Rotten Row, the bridle trail that wound around London's Hyde Park. It was dry, the hooves kicked up dust with every step. Even with its bright May plumage the park looked decidedly gaunt, disfigured by gun batteries and long entrails of trenches that had been ripped hastily from its earth.

  "Metaphors about donkeys led by jackasses tumble through the mind," Butler responded. "I've never known such confusion. Winston wants the BEF to strike south and re-establish contact with the French. Gort says that's impossible and insists on a withdrawal to the ports. Meanwhile the French seem incapable of fighting in any direction and do nothing but demand that we send them more planes to destroy."

  "I hear Winston sent Ironside what do you call him? Chief of the Imperial General Staff? Hell of a monicker," Kennedy mocked. "Anyhow, he sends Ironside to France, so my sources tell me. Wants him to talk with Gort, bend him about a bit, try to bring him round. Fat chance. I'm told there was more blood spilled in that room than along the entire Western Front that day. Gort refused point blank and said old Winnie's plans to strike south were madness. Was that the word he used? Yeah, I'm sure of it. Madness."

  "Your sources are, as usual, remarkably well informed. Catching up with the French army is like trying to catch a receding tide. Run as hard and as long as you like, but somehow the French always run faster."

  "And you're left standing up to your neck in -"

  "Mud. Precisely."

  "Ironside's pulled a tough one. The French wouldn't talk to him, Gort shouted at him and a German bomb blew him out of his bed when he got back to Calais. Tell me truly, Rab, you think he's gonna be any safer here in London in a couple of weeks' time?"

  The Minister didn't answer. He kicked ahead, as though trying to leave behind the awful, unspoken conclusion.

  "It's one of those little paradoxes of human nature," Butler began again as Kennedy caught up with him, 'that while, with every passing hour, Winston becomes more powerless on the field of battle, at home he struggles to establish the pretence of ever-greater authority."

  "Meaning?"

  "The new Emergency Powers. In the name of freedom, he is turning himself into a dictator. Unlimited powers. Confiscation of profits. Compulsory direction of labour. And he complains about fascism!"

  "Sounds more like communism to me."

  "Why, he could even order Chips down the coal mines."

  "And ruin his manicure? What would be the point?"

  "That's the problem, Joe. There is no point, to any of it."

  "At least Hitler knows what he wants. What does Winston want apart from endless war?"

  "A place in history."

  "And I understand Herr Hitler intends to give it to him."

  "Winston's so extraordinarily blind. Grabs for himself the powers of the meanest little Nero and pretends that it's all to do with maintaining man's inherent right to emancipation and independence."

  "So long as you're not a dark-bellied Indian."

  "Steady," Butler cautioned, pulling on the reins. "I'm not sure that your Indians have done any better than ours."

  "One of 'em sure has," Kennedy responded, nodding at Chips.

  "But for how much longer? What will happen to us? Everything we hold dear in this country, our property, our freedom, our associations, are all under threat."

  "Yeah, but from who?"

  They had slowed to a gentle walk, treading carefully as their thoughts and fears began to find form in the cool morning air.

  "It's his nature, grown worse. The stubbornness. The impetuosity. Such comprehensive unreason."

  The lust for power."

  "That at his will he may do danger with."

  "What?"

  "Oh, forgive me, Joe. A little Shakespeare."

  "A little conspiracy."

  "We are simply considering options, Joe."

  "Then consider all the options. Your generals can't stand him. Most of his own Government can't stand him. The King can't stand him. His allies can't stand him. For God's sake, Rab, let me in on this great British secret: What use is Winston?"

  The silence screamed out.

  "To lose a war for one man's vanity is a misfortune," Kennedy continued, 'but to lose an empire is madness."

  "Madness," Butler repeated.

  "So consider the options. You want peace. It can come in two forms. One that's agreed with the Germans, or one that's dictated by them. You choose."

  "If only I could."

  "What's for damn certain is that you can't let Winston choose! So consider the other option."

  "The other option?"

  The other-than-Winston option."

  Then we are talking conspiracy."
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br />   "We're talking common sense. And common interest. America doesn't want this European war. It doesn't want England crushed, and it sure doesn't want your navy to end up in German hands. It might come to that, Rab. You've got to do something before it's too late. Use whatever influence you have to ensure that the navy is sent to America."

  "In return for what?"

  "For us not supporting Winston. And for not helping this country throw itself on the bonfire of one man's ego."

  "But lose our navy?"

  "It either goes to your friends or the Germans will send it to the bottom of the Atlantic. Sink it or save it. Your choice, Rab."

  The Minister considered, his lips working as though about to speak but unable to find the words. For many minutes his horse walked on, reins loose, lacking direction, doing mindless duty.

  Chips was trotting back, summoning them for breakfast at the Dorchester, before Butler finally spoke.

  "I shall get me to my master Halifax. Have him place his patriotism alongside his loyalty. See which weighs the heavier."

  (Tuesday 21 May 1940. William L. Shirer, CBS.)

  Good evening. This is Cologne, Germany.

  I followed the German army into Belgium today as far as Brussels, and drove back here during most of the night to the first microphone I could find. There are two or three things I'd like to say .. .

  So far as we could observe today, the Allied air force has done very little to hamper German communications in the rear.

  Though we drove for fourteen hours today, along roads choked with columns of troops and supplies, we did not see a single Allied plane. Along the road to Brussels, the Allies had blown up a few bridges though others remained intact and dynamited the road in two or three places. But German tanks and trucks were already thundering over it. There are the British night bombings, to be sure, and I experienced one last night. But I saw no traces of any bomb craters in the many roads we took today.

  I do not pretend to know what damage has been done in western Germany by these night raids, but I motored through the Ruhr yesterday, and the vast network of railroads there, so important for Germany's war effort, was functioning very well, as far as I could see. I saw hundreds of important factories. Not one hit.