Churchill's Triumph

by Michael Dobbs

  Then they all heard it, a sound so appalling and piercing that it seemed no longer to be human. It was a noise like that of a stuck pig, driven insane by pain and the desperate longing to be dead. The mother groaned, and fainted. She would never know what had happened to her husband, could not see him leap up from the mire of melting slush and mud that had become freshly mixed with his blood, and tear frantically away, doubled over, clutching at the fresh and gaping wound where, moments before, had been the part that made him a man. Local people say that, if you stand on that spot in winter when the wind blows through the trees, even today you can hear his screams.

  Once the officer had finished with the woman and her two girls, the rest of them had their way. The mother never regained consciousness.

  Poland was being liberated.

  ***

  “It has been a good day, Josef Vissarionovich,” Molotov said, as the black Packard drove them the few miles back from the Livadia towards the palace at Yusupov.

  “Yes, a damned good day, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich.”

  “I think we have the bastards!”

  “Perhaps,” Stalin replied. “A little more patience. Still a few details to nail to the floor.”

  “We should’ve demanded more,” Molotov continued, his enthusiasm rising. “The Americans want us in their Japanese war so badly they’d skin their own daughters for it.”

  “By God, you’re a pig of inexhaustible appetites, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich.”

  “I’m grateful for your confidence, Josef Vissarionovich.”

  “What more could we have asked for? They’ve already handed over railways, ships, ports, credits, Sakhalin, the Kuriles. . . ”

  “And Poland. They’ve as good as given us Poland.”

  “It has never been theirs to give or take.”

  “Given in to us on Poland,” Molotov hastily corrected himself.

  “They quibble only so they can save face back home.”

  “Pathetic. Toss them a few words about elections and they go belly-up like spaniels.”

  “Have a care, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich. Remember, I have given them my sacred word,” Stalin warned. “And you know I always keep my word.”

  “Of course, Josef Vissarionovich.”

  “It’s just that, sometimes, I change my mind.”

  And their laughter brought tears to their eyes.

  “We should have asked for their atom bomb,” Molotov said, when they had grown quiet once more.

  “No, no, we can’t do that. Even to hint we know about it would betray the whole of our intelligence network in the West.”

  “But we shouldn’t need to ask, Josef Vissarionovich. They talk of alliance and friendship, yet still they deceive!”

  “What do you expect? You think their hearts will turn to sugar simply because they’ve got a bomb tucked in their pockets? Roosevelt whimpers on about this new world of his, and how all three of us will be its policemen. But he seems willing to rot in hell to make sure only two will have a truncheon.”

  They fell silent for a moment, staring into the gathering darkness as the headlights picked out the sentries at their posts along the road.

  “I fear they mean to use it against us, Josef Vissarionovich.”

  “Not Roosevelt, I think. He’s too befuddled, deceived by his own dreams. But look at him, how long can he last? Every day he steps closer to his God. No, it’s not him we should worry about, but what will follow.”

  “And that black bastard Churchill.”

  Stalin snorted through his moustache. “Every day I ask myself how much longer we will be forced to suffer that man.” The Packard was turning into the driveway of the Yusupov, the engine whining as it shuddered its way down through the gears. “Yet there’s another way of looking at it,” he continued. “Perhaps he’s part of some divine plan. Think of it, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich, maybe we owe him a debt of gratitude.”

  “I can’t see a single reason why.”

  “For sending his armies to Archangel all those years ago in the hope of crushing the revolution. Why, without Churchill and his ham-fisted invasion, the Red Army might never have learned how to fight.”

  “For some reason—which I feel with great intensity, Josef Vissarionovich—I doubt that you intend to make him a hero of the Soviet Union.”

  “But you’re wrong!” Stalin contradicted him with a laugh. “I intend to show my gratitude this evening, to them all. At dinner—with hospitality that’ll be worthy of Peter the Great himself. I want to drown them in kindness. I’ll be the perfect host. Toast their heroism, the size of their manhood, the breadth of their wisdom. Then we’ll go on to toast their generals, their womenfolk, their pets, their catamites, even that weakling of an English tsar. Wash away all their worries.”

  The car had drawn to a halt, the door was open, a blue-capped NKVD major was offering a starched salute.

  “I want to stuff Churchill and Roosevelt with so much gratitude that they’ll stagger away into the night and scarcely know where they are. And then, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich, in the morning, when they are dull and dim-witted—that’s when we shall bury the bastards!”

  ***

  A wave of tension, even crisis, wafted along the parquet-floored corridors of the Vorontsov. The “trifle” had gone missing. This was the informal name given to the gifts that the British brought with them on their diplomatic wanderings to hand out as tokens of gratitude to their hosts. At Yalta the trifle consisted of two silver cigarette cases, four cigarette lighters, a silver powder compact, six silver propelling pencils, and various other items. It comprised almost the entire monthly quota of luxury goods from Dunhill in St. James’s, and every single bit of it had disappeared. That morning the pieces had been in a desk drawer in one of the offices; by the evening, they had been liberated. No one had any doubts that the outstretched hand had belonged to one of the many Russians who were in constant attendance and who barged in and out of the rooms without knocking—chambermaids, cleaners, sentries, electricians, even plumbers. Yet no complaint could be made to the Russian authorities. It would have been insulting to their hosts, and it would doubtless have ended in tragedy with some poor innocent bathroom attendant dragged off to face a firing squad. The prospect didn’t make for a sound night’s sleep, so the British decided they would have to resolve the problem on their own. It placed Sir Alexander Cadogan in a mood that was several steps beyond foul.

  The diminutive diplomat was feeling the pressure. As the conference drew closer to its deadline for conclusion, the supporting staff members like Cadogan were condemned to spend their nights poring over the ambiguities and imprecisions arrived at during the day by the High Ones and turning them into something solid. This was a task of Herculean order, since it required Cadogan not only to find agreement with Russians and Americans but also to secure some sort of understanding among his own team, yet every man seemed to be a lawyer who could spot nothing but loopholes and loose ends. Cadogan sought harmony and found only confusion. All in all, it was beginning to turn into a bit of a flap.

  His temper wasn’t helped by the fact that he had only just discovered he’d been pushed off the invitation list for Uncle Joe’s grand show that evening at the Yusupov. The invitation list was littered with assorted admirals and ambassadors, even Sarah was going, but for him, the man who was responsible for squeezing meaning out of all their diplomatic manure, there was to be no place at the table.

  And now the wretched trifle had gone missing. The heels of Cadogan’s hand-stitched shoes made sharp clicking sounds of displeasure along the polished corridors as he went in search of someone upon whom he might offload his unhappiness. He found just the man, lurking in an alcove near the Prime Minister’s rooms. A workman.

  “What are you doing here?” the Englishman demanded. The workman’s eyes were shifty and he shuffled uneasily from foot to foot: he was clearly hiding s
omething, perhaps even the missing gifts.

  “I come to see Mr. Churchill.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, man. Let me see your bag.”

  But the workman refused to co-operate. A struggle quickly broke out for inspection rights to the bag; voices were raised, a woman’s head popped out from a nearby doorway to find the cause of the commotion. It was Sarah, dressed for dinner. And then the Prime Minister’s door opened.

  “No need makin’ a fuss. I’ll deal wi’ this, Zur Alex,” Sawyers said softly.

  “I think he’s stolen something, Sawyers.”

  “Wi’ all respect, Zur Alex, I doubt that. I can vouch for him.”

  “What the hell’s going on here? You know him?”

  “I do. So does Mr. Churchill. An’ he wouldn’t be wantin’ a fuss.”

  “Who is this man?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “You most certainly can.”

  Sawyers stood his ground. “Then I regret I’m not goin’ to, zur.”

  “I. . . I—” The diplomat reddened and rose on to his polished toes, trying to redeem his authority, but failed. “Well, I never. I really never did!”

  He had known Sawyers too long to doubt him, yet he resented being left out of things once again. This place was beginning to exasperate him beyond measure. Cadogan’s world was one of decisions, of clarity and, yes, of dinners. And he wasn’t getting any of that here. But his world was also one of order, and a mountain of untidy problems still waited for him back at his desk. He hadn’t time to make the fuss he thought he deserved. “I don’t know what the bloody hell’s going on here, Sawyers, and I don’t care for it. The world’s gone mad, you know. Mad! Quite blindingly mad!” He threw the last thought over his shoulder as he stumped away.

  Sawyers hustled Nowak inside the Prime Minister’s door. Sarah followed.

  “Now, Mr. Nowak, wi’ all due respect, you can’t just come and—”

  “I need to see Mr. Churchill. It is very urgent,” the Pole interrupted. He was agitated. Beads of sweat were clustered above his eyebrows.

  “But you can’t,” Sarah said. “He’s not coming back until after the dinner tonight.”

  “But I must see him.”

  “Simply not possible,” she insisted.

  “I must!”

  “Calm yourself, Mr. Nowak,” Sawyers said. “No point in gettin’ all bent out of shape.”

  “I risk my life to come here. I do not need lecture from a servant!”

  Sarah laughed as the Pole’s working-class clutch began to slip.

  “Your father did not laugh when he promised to save my life.”

  The smile was immediately smothered.

  “Your father is man of honor. Yet others are not. They seek to betray him. And if I do not see him tonight, there is nothing anyone can do to save him!”

  “Sorry, zur, but you can’t be seein’ him, not tonight. He’s not here.”

  “Then Mr. Churchill is lost,” the Pole cried, and slumped to his knees. “And if he is lost, I am, too. Everything is lost…”

  ***

  Churchill had gone directly from the afternoon’s plenary session to the Yusupov. There had been no time to return to his own quarters to wash or change or, as it happened, to see Nowak. When Sarah arrived at Stalin’s villa to join her father in the early evening, she found him in a corner with two Soviet generals, deep in discussion about the campaigns of Napoleon. For the moment, he had succeeded in slipping the leash that tied him to Birse, the interpreter, and was conducting the conversation in pidgin French.

  “Papa,” she greeted, touching his elbow gently.

  He neither turned nor faltered in his monologue, ignoring her.

  “Papa,” she repeated, more firmly, squeezing his arm.

  “Ah, ma petite burrito. Excusez-moi, messieurs les générals,” he muttered in his execrable accent, nodding to the two men. Sarah led him to a corner beside a large pot plant.

  “Well? It’s been a bloody day, Mule, absolutely bloody. Can it get any worse?”

  “’Fraid so, Papa. Your Polish plumber’s been to the Vorontsov. Quite desperate to talk to you.”

  “Ah—”

  “Gave me a message. He says to remind you that you’re a man of honor and have given him your word.”

  “I am also a man with an unfinished drink.”

  “And he says there’s something you’ve got to know. Apparently, Stalin left from here in something of a hurry earlier today. Went straight to the Livadia, where he met with the President. In private.”

  “What?”

  “It was a sudden change of plan, he says. All the guards running around like headless chickens for a while. Our Pole felt certain you didn’t know.” She didn’t explain, as Nowak had done, that the Russians had been joking about it: “What do you get if you go behind the back of Winston Churchill?—An opportunity!”

  “Stalin? And Franklin? Are you sure?” he gasped, incredulous, as though in physical pain.

  “Molotov and Averell, too. No one else.”

  “But… dear God, why?”

  “Polish didn’t know the details. Only that it was to talk about Asia.”

  There are moments in a man’s life when his world begins to turn on a different axis. In most respects it appears the same world, but its sky holds a new guiding star. And it changes everything. If this tale were true—and Churchill was enough of an old dog to lick his paws before springing to conclusions—but if it were true, they were trying to cast him aside. To carve up Asia for themselves. A continent where Britain was master in many households—in India, Burma, Malaya, Singapore, Hong Kong, to speak nothing of Australia and New Zealand. Yet now they were trying to force him out.

  Roosevelt had never made any secret of his loathing for empire, and he made no exception for the British. At their first wartime meeting in Newfoundland, Churchill remembered how the American had made clear his ambition that the war would do away with “eighteenth-century colonialism.” He had talked of European nations riding roughshod over colonial peoples, even come close to comparing British rule in India with Fascism—oh, how those words had whipped across Churchill’s cheek. Roosevelt never forgot that the roots of every American were republican and revolutionary: now he saw the chance to squeeze the British Empire dry. The bloody, bloody man!

  If it were true.

  Yet the melting sensation that suddenly flowed inside Churchill’s gut told him it was so. He felt as if he’d just found his wife in bed with his own brother. Desolated. Betrayed. And if Franklin could betray him over empire, he was capable of betraying him on almost anything. Perhaps it was already happening.

  Churchill was a fighter. He’d not stopped doing battle since the day of his birth when he’d bumped his head on the floor of that cloakroom in Blenheim while his mother had looked on and screamed in surprise. That was when he had started screaming, too, and he’d not stopped since. He didn’t know any other way, could never tell when the time had come to shut up and give in. But now Churchill knew that something terrible had happened. He had lost. There was nothing he could achieve here at Yalta that Roosevelt and Stalin between them couldn’t, and almost certainly wouldn’t, undermine. The consequences in Poland and in so many other places would inevitably be abominable.

  And yet—Winston believed with every breath and every beat of his heart in what he was fighting for—Britain, of course, but not just that. There was so much more, something wider and deeper that went beyond even loyalty to one’s country. Strange, elusive virtues that grew like seeds in dark places, like Truth, Hope, Family, the freedom for a man to think his own thoughts and sing his own songs. These often started life as scrawny stems, yet no matter how hard they were beaten down and left for dead, they kept coming back, often uncertain but ridiculously insistent, until eventually they burst through with such powe
r that no man could tame them, not even one like Stalin. It might take the better part of forever, but so long as the world turned and the sun rose, their time would come.

  And in that struggle, the most powerful weapons of all were words. For Stalin, words meant nothing, and even Franklin was no great respecter of words. He often said that words meant only what he could make voters believe they meant, something elastic that might be stretched round every street corner from Poughkeepsie to the Pacific Coast. Yet for Churchill, words were secure, solid things that couldn’t simply be bent until they broke. And when the great clash of military machines was over and the noise of battle had faded from the field, and men and women could raise themselves once more from the dirt, that was when words would be heard once more, and words might yet decide their fate.

  The battle for Poland was lost. It was time for the war of words to begin.

  And the time to start had already arrived. Stalin was striding across the room, ushering them into the dining hall. There were to be many different recollections of what followed that night, but everyone was unanimous that it was an evening of exceptional abundance. Stettinius said he recalled twenty courses and forty-five toasts, but he might well have lost count. Most did. They were up and down from their chairs to raise their glasses so frequently that much of the food was eaten cold, yet there was so much of it that a few abandoned platefuls made precious little difference. The official transcript has preserved only a fraction of those toasts, most of which were so grandiloquent that they left the translators sweating to find language fertile enough to convey the right meaning. So much was said that night, but what was actually meant would be argued over for decades.

  The evening was to be remembered in quite contrasting lights. To some, particularly the Americans, it seemed like the high-water mark of the alliance, the occasion when hearts and minds came together in common cause. The mood was later described by Hopkins as one of “extreme exultation.” Yet there were other views. One of the British military commanders who sat and sipped through it all described it as nothing more than “insincere slimy sort of slush.”