Churchill's Triumph

by Michael Dobbs

Oh, but this Georgian bastard was a master! He was no spring chicken—his hair was thinning, the jowls sagging, the shoulders growing ever more stiff—but still he could be the master of the moment. In adversity he never lost his nerve, had skillfully avoided the trap Churchill had set for him. Perhaps if there had been an ounce of humanity and compassion in him, he and Churchill might have become friends, or drinking partners, at least, but instead. . . Stalin would get Poland, but Churchill was one step closer to getting most of the language he wanted in the final communiqué. It was what he had to fight for now. And he particularly liked the analogy with Belgium and Holland. When the time came they would form threads of the rope with which he might yet hang the Marshal’s reputation, like a crow on a country fence.

  ***

  Stanislaw Nowak trudged discontentedly through the streets of the town he loved. He had been born here, and all he had ever wanted was that he should die here, in good time. He had harbored ill-will towards no man, and sought little but a patch of earth no bigger than his neighbor’s on which he might be left to scratch a living for his wife and sons. He’d never had the learning for the Church or the initiative for enterprise like his brothers, yet he had riches of his own. His neighbors had given him their affection and trust as the leader of their small community and that, for a while, had made his life seem almost perfect. Then the war had arrived and now his sons were dead, his wife was so very different and he was no longer certain of very much at all. Piorun had been crushed by tanks built in the Ruhr and had now been liberated by tanks built beyond the Urals, and perhaps he should be grateful for what the Russians had done, but it was said that nothing good ever came from the east. On the other hand, the war had done away with the old truths, perhaps all truths, and if the Russians wanted to invite him and his friends for a celebration, there had to be some good in it.

  Earlier that day the townsfolk had gathered for a thanksgiving mass, and he and his brother had stood at the door and kissed everyone as they had entered the church. His sister-in-law hadn’t turned up, neither had a few of the other women, and all sorts of lurid rumors were flooding around, but he paid them no heed. There were so many whispers about what was going to happen, about frontiers and governments and the like, but when he had been asked he always replied that no harm would come to them, not with America standing four-square behind Poland.

  Yet, as he settled on his knees and gazed up at the carved wooden statue of St. Casimir, the country’s patron saint, confusion drenched his senses and brought tears to his eyes. The future belonged not so much to the holy Casimir as to St. Marx and St. Mammon, and in the battle for supremacy that would be fought between them, people like him would count for nothing and places like Piorun would be changed beyond recognition, turned into a collective farm or a car factory. And all he had ever wanted was Clara, his cow.

  After the service, he’d gone looking for his sister-in-law but her house was empty. Someone said they’d seen her walking towards the bridge, dragging a suitcase behind her bound by a leather strap that was his brother’s old army belt, but Stanislaw discounted that. She had no reason to leave, not now, not when the worst was over. But on the way back he had passed the house of the doctor. The door was open and its window smashed, and a group of Russian soldiers were drinking what looked to be his rubbing alcohol and picking through objects in the street. A chair. Clothes. The bathtub. Medical instruments. Radio. The doctor’s telephone. One of the soldiers kept shouting into the phone and waiting for an answer, and when none came he eventually lost patience with it and smashed it against the wall. Of the doctor himself, there was no sign.

  Stanislaw was bewildered, he didn’t know what to think, but the years of occupation had taught him not to think much at all and never to share his thoughts. To survive you had to be silent, to look the other way, or end up sleeping on pine needles in the forest like his brother. And that wasn’t necessary any longer, was it?

  Stanislaw continued his trudging. It was almost dark. The creaking pump handles were falling silent, the doors being drawn shut and bolted, the geese ruffling their wings one last time. As he approached the inn, he could hear music coming from within: someone was playing a mazurka, and suddenly a little of the warmth of the old days crept back. A military guard stood outside and saluted, presenting arms as he walked in. And inside, the inn was crowded and bathed in unaccustomed light. He found the postman, the schoolteacher, a couple of farmers, the owner of the sugar beet factory, all the important men of the town, along with Russian officers. The fire was roaring. At one end of the room a table was laden with bread and sausage, behind which the Soviet and Polish flags had been intertwined, and the inn-keeper was rushing around serving vodka while his red-faced wife wound up the gramophone. It was almost as he remembered Marian’s wedding feast, held in this same room all those years ago. . . Perhaps, after all, things would turn out right. For a moment, Stanislaw Nowak began to find the glimmerings of happiness once more.

  Then Major Morozov was approaching, shaking his hand, calling him comrade, checking his list of names and telling him he was the last to arrive. He and all his friends were ushered over to the table at the end of the room, given glasses, invited to eat. Yet as he turned to thank his host, Nowak suddenly felt as though he was standing on that unsteady stool beneath the lamppost once more, with a noose round his neck and the breath being tugged from his body.

  For guards had suddenly appeared, guns had been drawn, the gramophone kicked over and the inn-keeper’s wife slapped into silence.

  “Comrade Nowak,” Morozov was saying, “I have the pleasure to inform you and your colleagues that you are all under arrest.”

  “Arrest? But why? Why?” he shouted. “On what charge?”

  “Charge?” Morozov repeated curiously, playing with the word like a cat with a piece of string. “Why, you choose, comrade. Whatever you like. We’ll make sure it fits.”

  And the Russians had roared with laughter as they pushed the Poles towards the truck that was waiting outside the door.

  ***

  Sawyers had just stoked the fire and made sure there would be a welcome for Churchill at whatever time he returned, when the door opened. The butler stood back and gasped.

  Water was creeping across the bathroom floor and the plumber had come to clear up the mess. Come to sort everything out, Sawyers hoped, and not just the leak. To get everything back as it should be. And now the plumber was standing in the doorway, toolbag in his hand, wiping dirty hands on his apron.

  But it wasn’t Marian Nowak. They had sent a different plumber.

  ***

  Nowak had been playing cards with some of the other men, squatting on the steps of their barracks in the weak afternoon sun and sharing a packet of Chesterfields that one of them had liberated from the Livadia, when they came. The trucks arrived with no warning, but what should they expect? The NKVD never gave warning. Today they simply turned up and told them to gather their belongings. Apart from what they were wearing, it amounted to no more than a change of shirt and underwear and their bag of tools for most of the workmen. Then they were ordered into the trucks.

  There was no hostility, no alarm, nothing but an edge of boredom. Another day in Paradise, with guards, trucks, much grumbling, flapping canvas, men in shambling queues waiting to climb on board. An officer stood by with a clipboard, counting heads, shouting for them to hurry. Just like Katyn.

  “Where are we going?” Nowak asked.

  “Going?”

  “Yes, where?”

  “You’re going home, you halfwit. To Moscow.”

  “But the conference.”

  “Almost over. Time to go. For everyone to go.”

  “But. . . I can’t. I’ve got to fix Mr. Churchill’s plumbing.”

  “Fuck Mr. Churchill’s plumbing. And fuck Mr. Churchill. So get your arse on board. What are you looking so shifty about? It won’t kill you.”

&n
bsp; But it would. Not today, not immediately, but they would ship him back to Moscow until the time came when his deceptions began to unravel and all those lies he had told would line up to denounce him. Then they would kill him. A bullet to the back of the head. That was the Soviet style.

  They would murder him because he had lied, cheated the system.

  Because he had made fools of them.

  Because he was an awkward bloody Pole.

  And, above all else, because he knew about Katyn.

  He had cheated Stalin once, but few got away with it a second time. As they pushed him on board the truck, his hand went to the pocket of his tunic, the place where he kept his daughter’s memory. The daughter he now knew he would never see again.

  SATURDAY, 10th OF FEBRUARY, 1945

  THE SEVENTH DAY

  EIGHT

  When he came into the bedroom, Bruenn found the President already dictating to a secretary. With only a murmur of greeting, he sat down near the head of the bed while the President continued with his work. Roosevelt ignored his cardiologist, didn’t even divert his eyes, but slowly a bony wrist was pushed across the covers.

  Bruenn bit back his frustration. He’d given his patient explicit instructions to take it easy that morning and allow no visitors before eleven. It was as close as a lieutenant commander could get to giving his Commander-in-Chief a direct order, but it had proved a complete waste of breath. The man was so damned stubborn! Bruenn had noticed how his patient was also beginning to have trouble concentrating. The struggle over this last week had seemed to drain the President. The face had become an anatomical diagram, without an ounce of flesh, the bones showing clearly through stretched grey skin that had turned to parchment. And, as the doctor placed his fingers on the other man’s wrist, he noticed that the irregular, stumbling pulse was back: the congested heart was having difficulty finding its rhythm, like a marathon runner whose legs were buckling. His patient was desperately unwell.

  Then Stettinius and Harriman entered, locked in a discussion that was slowly turning to argument.

  “Morning, boys,” the President greeted them, struggling to lift himself up and wave his free hand. “Looks like you’ve all got me surrounded. No chance of escape now, and just when I was planning to go for my morning run.” Another face appeared at the door. “Hah! But here comes the cavalry. Morning, Harry.”

  Hopkins came in. Stettinius and Harriman both looked drawn and tired from the effects of a long night’s haggling but Hopkins appeared even more played out. He was still in his dressing-gown, breakfasting on cigarettes, and was clearly intending to return to his bed. Yet of them all, it was Roosevelt who appeared most frail.

  “Mr. President!” Bruenn muttered in warning.

  For the first time that morning Roosevelt looked directly at his doctor, only to look away again.

  “So, gentlemen, have we and Uncle Joe got ourselves an agreement?”

  It was the naïve, unworldly Stettinius who decided to rise to the bait and reply, little realizing that it would leave him exposed as a target for the others.

  “It’s been a struggle, sir, but apart from a few minor drafting details, I think we’re done on most things. We’ve got agreement to hold the inaugural meeting of the United Nations in little more than a month. In San Francisco.”

  “Bully.”

  “And we’re very close on Poland, except…”

  “Ed?”

  “Well, our British friends are being a real pain about the drafting, picking over words like they were panning for gold.”

  “That’s old Winnie up to his tricks.” The President sighed. “Can’t push past a dangling participle or a split infinitive without jumping up and down like he’s sat on a porcupine. Told me yesterday he wouldn’t stand for it being called a ‘joint communiqué,’ says it makes the whole thing sound like a Sunday roast.”

  “A matter on which he is an acknowledged expert,” Hopkins chipped in.

  “Mr. President, I think we’ve got most things we wanted on Poland,” the Secretary of State continued earnestly. “A more broadly based government. Free elections—”

  “In a month?” demanded the President, levering himself up from his pillows and remembering Stalin’s promise.

  “They’re to be held as soon as possible. That’s what we’ve agreed. But no observers, Uncle Joe’s boys won’t budge on that.”

  “Doesn’t that rather defeat the entire object of the exercise?” Harriman interjected, picking up the threads of their disagreement.

  “Only if you consider that the Russians have no intention of keeping their word,” Stettinius responded, “in which case, what’s the point of anything?”

  “Look, if we’ve got the Marshal tied into the United Nations and the war against Japan, we’re going back home with ninety-five per cent of what we came for,” Roosevelt muttered, sinking back on to his pillows.

  “That’s exactly what Stalin wants us to believe,” Harriman replied. “We think we’ve got an agreement, then at the last minute he drops some whole new condition into the pot. We thought we had a deal on the Far East, then late last night, Molotov insists that we guarantee Russia’s ‘pre-eminent interests’ in the region and agree that all her claims must be ‘unquestionably fulfilled.’ The precise wording he wants used.”

  “Damnit, we paid for that horse already,” Roosevelt muttered.

  “Looks like we’ve got to raid the bank once more.”

  Roosevelt sighed. “Still, ‘pre-eminent interests. . . unquestionably fulfilled.’ Only a couple of phrases. Could mean almost anything. I don’t think we go upsetting the apple cart over a few words, do we?”

  Stettinius turned to smile at Harriman, claiming victory, while Bruenn’s brow creased with concern. The President’s pulse rate was up, and he hadn’t even got out of bed.

  “And I think I may have a solution on Poland,” the President continued. “Uncle Joe says he won’t sign up to observers because it might look like a slap in the face for the Poles. But if he’ll accept in private how important some sort of scrutiny is to us, I can’t see it’s necessary to make a great public fuss over it. Hell, otherwise we could be stuck here another week just bickering about punctuation. I’ll have a quiet word with the Marshal later today, make sure he understands.”

  “Somehow I think he understands perfectly well already,” Harriman said disconsolately.

  It was at that point that Bruenn jumped in. His fingers were still clinging to Roosevelt’s wrist. It was clear his patient had lost the ability to fight — for anything. One infection might finish him off. “May I ask, Mr. President, just how long you think it will be before the conference finishes?” he asked quietly.

  “You anxious to get home, Commander?”

  “I’d rather we were both in our own beds, sir.”

  “Well, we’ll leave just as soon as I can get these gentlemen to stand in line with each other and give me a piece of paper to sign. Which will be. . . ?”

  “Another day at most!” Stettinius replied enthusiastically. “Today, perhaps. Why not?”

  Bruenn noticed Harriman roll his eyes in dismay, while Hopkins lit another cigarette and began to cough. Everything was dragging on too long, the exhausted leading the infirm. Time to bring it to an end.

  Roosevelt sensed his cardiologist’s unspoken warning. “Well, let’s hope that Marshal Stalin finds some pressing distraction on the Berlin front,” he said, “and if we can keep Winston thinking about his Sunday roast, then maybe we’ll all be allowed to go home.”

  ***

  Eden was beginning to think that the Old Man was doing it deliberately. It was bad enough being forced to report to him while he was propped up in bed, but he drew the line at this steam-soaked bathroom. How was he supposed to conduct a serious conversation while watching the Prime Minister scrub his back? It was so wretchedly demeaning. He stood
beside Cadogan, sensing the creases in his trousers dying with every passing minute and growing increasingly irritable.

  “The Americans have been going behind our backs, Winston.”

  There was a parting of the waves, and the Prime Minister appeared. “I know.”

  “They’ve been talking to the Russians about the Far East, cooking up a deal. I’ve got it all here, in a detailed note.” Eden waved an increasingly damp-stricken piece of paper.

  “Seen it. They were kind enough to send me a copy. For signature.”

  “Well, we can’t sign. Can’t possibly. What they’re proposing goes against every principle we’ve been fighting for. Openness. Honesty. Consent.”

  Well, Churchill wasn’t entirely sure that that was what they’d been fighting for all these years, but Anthony was something of an idealist and deserved his illusions.

  “This is a disgraceful piece of subterfuge on our Chinese allies,” the foreign secretary continued.

  “Not to mention the empire—Sawyers, where’s the bloody soap?”

  “I suspect you’re sittin’ on it, zur,” a disinterested voice replied, drifting through the open doorway. Churchill scowled: Sawyers had been out of sorts all morning.

  “We think you should raise it at the plenary,” Cadogan joined in.

  “But what’s the point, Alec? As you say, our friends round the table have already agreed to it. What on earth can we do on our own?”

  “Open their eyes to the implications! Get them to think again!” Eden protested, searching for the handkerchief he kept tucked up his sleeve in order to wipe his brow. “It’s a repudiation of the Atlantic Charter and makes a mockery of every principle behind the United Nations. This is Old World diplomacy at its worst!”

  Churchill wiped the suds that were drifting down his face to peer up at his colleague. “My dear Anthony, you are absolutely right in your analysis, but utterly wrong in your outcome. We can’t get them to change their minds at this late stage. And China is so very far away. There are too many other fronts on which we still have to fight, fronts closer to home.”