Agent Lavender: The Flight of Harold Wilson

by Tom Black

  “All set?” asked Tim, throwing Gareth his bag.

  “I suppose so,” Gareth said, “I didn’t get to sleep until three, though.”

  “Oh, did your mam not bring you some hot milk?” teased Tim, receiving a punch in the arm for his troubles. He feigned a grimace then looked up at the time. “Shall we get going, then?”

  Gareth nodded his approval and clambered into his cab, Tim jogging off to do the same. There was never quite enough legroom, he thought as he checked his watch and pressed the ignition. As the engine roared to life, he smiled at the comfort it brought him. His family had been driving for generations. His dad had hauled sand and building supplies across the valleys from the age of eighteen, and both of Gareth’s granddads had driven the first lorry routes between Cardiff and Bristol. There was a sense of destiny to what he found himself doing for a living today.

  “All set?” he shouted, pulling on his hat. Receiving a thumbs up, he reached for the gears and began to ease forward. The Chieftain tank lurched at first, then trundled smoothly out onto Birdcage Walk. Behind it, seven more stood idling and ready in Wellington Barracks.

  Harold Wilson did not like to be beside the seaside. Great Yarmouth had particularly bad weather, even for an English seaside town in November. Wind and rain were among Harold’s least favourite things – oh, how he’d hated the Scilly Isles! – and both were in copious supply on the East Anglian coast.

  He missed his bed. He longed for the antiquated ‘mattress’ that Jacob had put him on in the spare room. At this point, he may even have even settled for the cold embrace of a prison slab in Wormwood Scrubs. All seemed luxury beyond comprehension when compared to the grim, sodden cardboard that he had endured the previous night. He looked back with a snort at the misery he had felt when he had slept in that barn – when was it? – a century ago?

  Great Yarmouth had been somewhere near the bottom of Wilson’s places to see before he died, but he had found himself becoming very well acquainted with the town over the past two days. Fear of being detected had made him restless and he had felt more secure traipsing around the back streets rather than risk being disturbed by an angry shopkeeper if he had made the wrong decision about which doorstep to slumber on.

  It was not the most sensible of plans – but after evading capture for the past two weeks, Harold Wilson was beginning to think that he could survive for another couple of hours.

  A noise startled him and he spun around, awaiting the inevitable calls for him to come out with his hands up. With a sigh, he realised that only the most inefficient of police services would have decided to announce their arrival by a fishing trawler’s foghorn.

  That said, as the first tendrils of daylight turned the eastern sky from black to indigo, Harold Wilson decided that it was probably time for him to find somewhere else to hide.

  At Wilson’s former residence, Sir John Hunt was having similar thoughts. As a Civil Servant, he was a man not unfamiliar with early mornings, but as he stifled both a yawn and a dozen and one barked commands, he started to wonder if he had been foolish to have turned down retirement when it had been offered to him by the man sat opposite him,

  Did he even sleep? The Cabinet Secretary considered the First Lord of the Treasury – who had been working at his desk when Sir John had gone to bed and who had still been there when he had arrived six hours later. Catnaps may be able to get you by for a few days, but sooner or later, you really need to grab a solid couple of hours.

  “…not to mention this absurd matter that is happening in Australia that I have found myself having to deal with...”

  Lord Mountbatten was ‘housekeeping’. Sir John hated himself for putting the inverted commas around the word, but it had really been forced upon him ever since Ted Heath had used the term, half-jokingly – at a meeting of the Inner Cabinet several days ago. Mountbatten was not supposed to be taking such a keen interest in the internal workings of the country, that was meant to have been Whitelaw’s new job, but the man who had presided over Partition was apparently entirely serious about doing one’s duty, which had left the rest of the government struggling to keep up.

  Heads of Government had various ways of keeping informed of priorities whilst in office. To the surprise of no-one, Mountbatten opted for a military means of doing so. A large map of the British Isles covered one end of the office, with a smaller one of the world next to it. Both were covered in pins and string, each of which lead to a sentence. Each sentence was colour-coded to show its priority and seriousness. Most of them were red, and the biggest cluster was improbably located on Iceland. The third ‘Cod War’ appeared to be brewing, and Mountbatten flitted between two positions: a level-headed patrician aware of Britain’s currently dreadful standing on the world stage, and a naval officer through-and-through who had no intention of backing down in the face of half a dozen gunboats. Today, concerningly, he was more like the latter.

  Sir John realised that the First Lord of the Treasury was looking at him in expectation. He glanced at the other end of the map, where Mountbatten was pointing.

  “Australia?”

  “Yes,” Mountbatten said, “some damn fool of a Governor General has suddenly decided that it would be for the best to launch his own coup as well – something of a ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ state of affairs.”

  Sir John gave a weak chuckle before realising that neither Mountbatten – nor the Permanent Secretary at the FCO – were laughing.

  “Best sack him, I think,” the First Lord of the Treasury was saying, “I know that he technically is autonomous, but I have never really seen being Gee-Gee as being akin to a Viceroy,” he said, speaking from experience, “you are really there to be sort of a Deputy Monarch.”

  “I will have a telegram sent immediately, Lord Louis,” Sir Thomas Brimelow replied, “I would suggest that we nullify his decisions via an Order in Council as well and have Mr Whitlam reinstated pending the Federal election.”

  “Good,” Mountbatten replied with a wave of a hand, “make it so.”

  Sir John Hunt could only look in astonishment as yet another constitutional convention was rounded up and dismissed.

  “Now,” Mountbatten continued as Sir Thomas quietly closed the door, “this brings us on to the very dicey matter of Northern Ireland.”

  “You cannot do that!”

  “I am sorry?” Mountbatten said, looking up from his red box. “What cannot I do?”

  Sir John rounded on him, the pent up rage of the past two weeks finally bubbling over.

  “Just sack a Governor-General, my Lord,” he added, with only a fraction of the respect that was due. “You cannot do that. You have not consulted Canberra, had a meeting with the High Commissioner, or barely even given it a second thought since the matter was brought to you the other day.”

  Lord Mountbatten said nothing, opting instead to stare.

  “I mean,” Sir John continued, but flagging somewhat, “I know that this position was rather forced upon you by Sir Michael and the others at the Service, but you must be aware of your position. You are not,” he said, scrabbling for a comparison that was not entirely hyperbolic, “You are not Admiral Horthy!”

  That did provoke a reaction. Although well into his seventies, Mountbatten was a tall man and it took a while for him to bring himself up to his full, rather magnificent, height.

  “Sir John,” he said in a voice that was so calm and measured that it made the Cabinet Secretary almost wish that he was shouting, “I helped to guarantee the independence and freedom of almost a billion people – I would rather prefer it if you did not compare me to a man who abetted a regime that wished to do the opposite, even if your intention is to remind me that I am ‘Mortal Like The Rest Of Us’.”

  Sir John said nothing, although he retook his seat in a manner that suggested that the subject was not entirely over.

  “As I was saying,” Mountbatten said, as if nothing had happened, “we do have the latest attacks in Northern Ireland to discuss which
, perhaps, can wait until Mr Pym can brief us later today.”

  Both men knew that Northern Ireland’s reaction to the Wilson Affair was somewhat of an enigma. Despite the obvious reaction from the more “hang ‘em and flog ‘em” Ulstermen, the far-left Republicans had been even more surprised with the revelation that the man who had been leading the charge against them for almost a decade had been found out to have been taking from the same pay packet as them. Five had already reported that an emergency meeting at a farmhouse near the border had prompted many of the members of the INLA to argue for a break with Moscow in favour of a link with Beijing.

  Many more, however, had not – and soon Irish Republicans had been shooting at other Irish Republicans. While this was of little concern to Her Majesty’s Government, there was no ignoring the obvious consequences for the poor civilians who had been caught in the crossfire.

  “By the way, this summit that President Ford has called?” the First Lord of the Treasury continued, as Sir Thomas re-entered the room.

  “Yes, Prim…Lord Mountbatten?”

  “Try and get Lord Home sent along into the main room, would you?” The announcement of an emergency meeting between the Security Council’s Permanent Members had not been a surprise, but the decision to have invited the West Germans along, whilst only having the British delegation as ‘Associates’ had come as somewhat of a humiliation to the Foreign Office. “I do not really want Alec to be cocking his ear against the keyhole whilst Chancellor Schmidt goes on about how the Germans can combat inflation much better than we can, and how Hamburg is a more suitable anchorage than Portsmouth.”

  Sir Thomas scribbled on a notepad and left the room yet again. Not for the first time, Sir John wondered if he ever got bored of being used as a Cabinet yo-yo.

  “Has Mr Prentice been approached yet?” Mountbatten started up again, without so much as a pause. “I promised the TUC that we would get this White Paper on Industrial Relations done before the Christmas recess and we have not been able to get any further than dusting off Mrs Castle’s old attempt from a couple of years ago.”

  “Mr Prentice?” Sir John said, annoyed that yet another thing had passed him by.

  “Oh yes,” Mountbatten said, somewhat relishing the Cabinet Secretary’s irritation. “I have decided to appoint – in the interest of Parliamentary unity obviously – a member of the new British Labour grouping to the Cabinet.”

  “‘I’, sir?” said Sir John, reproachfully.

  “I think you will find that I said, ‘we’,” Mountbatten replied, not missing a beat.

  The sundering of the Labour Party had not materialised since Roy Jenkins and Tony Benn had decided that they liked permanent opposition rather less than they disliked one another, but the defection had given the government a small but workable majority, although the grumblings from the handful of pro-Thatcher members of the 1922 had threatened it since Whitelaw had been shunted into the caretaker role. Mountbatten had wondered why Heath had refused to stand, but the new Leader of the House of Commons had seemed unwilling to, apparently still smarting from his original deposition.

  “Was there anything else?” Lord Mountbatten said, as he finished signing the last few papers – something about amending the Royal Charter.

  The Cabinet Secretary looked around for a moment before replying. “You asked about the…” he paused, gulping, “…the police report concerning the Lord President of the Council?”

  For the first time, Mountbatten looked uneasy.

  “Ah,” he said, “I have been advised by Sir Michael that, if certain reports were to be made public, the future loyalty and cohesion of the Liberal Party may prove to be less secure than previously anticipated.”

  “I would say nothing more, my Lord,” Sir John said, “I will do all that I can.”

  The Cabinet Secretary scribbled a memo as Mountbatten – after a few seconds of tortured contemplation – suddenly left his desk and made for the door. Sir John Hunt gave a sigh of relief as he realised that the Saviour Of The United Kingdom And Lord Protector For Life was mortal after all.

  “Enjoy your rest, my Lord,” he said.

  “Rest?” Mountbatten said, more humoured than anything else, “Rest can wait; I need to be on a platform with Her Majesty in Trafalgar Square in two hours.”

  He registered the groan, but chose to ignore it.

  Gareth Stimpson knew he’d found his calling the first time he felt the purr and growl of a Chieftain tank’s engine under his feet. While the old girl he now found himself sitting in had never seen combat, she was his and the rest of the crew’s pride and joy. He waved to the flag-waving revellers lining Birdcage Walk – who were not as numerous as estimates had suggested.

  His eyes were diverted back to directly ahead of him when his radio crackled to life. His commander, no longer waving from the turret, had concern in his voice.

  “Taff, do you see what I see?”

  Gareth squinted and looked ahead.

  “Oh, that’s no good, that.”

  The policemen who had set out the crowd barricades the night before had clearly not done their homework. While the last vehicle of the St John’s Ambulance convoy was just about negotiating the turn around the bulge of people and fences at the junction to Storey’s Gate, the gap between said bulge and the crowd on the other side of the road was perilously small. It was obvious even from this distance that there was no way a twelve-foot wide Chieftain tank was getting through.

  “What do we do, sir?” he radioed.

  “Buggered if I know. There’s no way we can stop – there are cameras everywhere. Command will have my head if we cause a pile-up.”

  All the same, Gareth slowed the tank down ever so slightly. At this speed, they had about two minutes until they reached the Scylla of the crowd and Charybdis of… the other crowd. Gareth wasn’t good with metaphors.

  “Can you get us through there? If we slow right down?” the commander was back on the radio.

  “I really don’t think so, sir,” Gareth replied.

  “Well, it’s up to you. I’m officially deferring, Taff – you’re the driver, you know better than any of us what she can do.”

  Gareth nodded, maintaining his fixed smile for the adoring crowds. His eyes roamed around, looking for a solution. The tank rumbled outside the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, the oh-so-narrow gap now dangerously near.

  No, there was no way it was going to happen. With a deep breath, Gareth made a decision.

  “We’re turning left!” he shouted into the radio, and promptly worked the tank into doing just that. Shouts of agreement from Tim and the other drivers behind him confirmed they would be doing the same. In a smoothly executed manoeuvre, smiles and waves intact throughout, the eight tanks turned effortlessly to the left.

  “We’ll be able to rejoin the procession at Trafalgar Square as planned,” shouted the commander, presumably holding a map, “just keep going straight up here, and then turn right. Good work!”

  Gareth allowed himself a genuine smile. He could get used to being under pressure, he thought.

  The eight tanks trundled amiably up Horse Guards Parade.

  Peter Mandelson was picking his teeth. He was sure the rancid chicken the LSE mob had insisted on bringing and killing on-site was going to cause him trouble in the latrines tomorrow morning.

  The Democratic Movement Of Students In Occupation For Peace – Peter could see why they preferred to just call it ‘the Peace Camp’ – had had a fair few strokes of luck. When the hundred or so students had arrived at Horse Guards Parade in the early hours of that morning, it had actually seemed like a pleasant enough way to spend a November morning. The rozzers who’d come to clear them away had been successfully repelled through a combination of human chains and ‘powerful oratory’ that ultimately boiled down to ‘the world’s press is going to be here, do you want them to see you manhandling us on the day the country is supposed to get back to normal?’

  Obviously there were the crowds
of – by the looks of it – exclusively Conservative voters hanging around the place, but far fewer than expected had decided to turn up. On the walk down Fleet Street, it looked as though the police had actually outnumbered the civilians in some areas.

  “What’s that noise?” asked a girl with braids in her hair. Mandelson cocked his head and tried to listen. There was a low rumbling round, and it was getting louder. Curious, Mandelson walked out into the road to see what was happening. As he turned, his eyes widened and he suddenly felt very strange.

  “What is it, Pete?” someone called. Peter responded without really thinking.

  “Tanks.”

  There was laughter, and Peter thought it would be a good idea to assure people that he was being entirely serious, but found himself rooted to the spot.

  “Tanks,” he said again, and then over and over. “Tanks. Tanks. Tanks.”

  The laughter stopped. If anyone was still in doubt, they were convinced immediately when a Chieftain tank, swerving to avoid the meditation circle in the middle of the road, careened into the side of that absurd yurt that the SOAS people had decided to erect.

  Expectedly, the sudden arrival of a heavy armoured tank column into a mesh of unprepared student activists led to a combination of screaming, running and furious shouts. It was an extraordinary scene – tents ground and chewed up by caterpillar tracks (thankfully, there was no-one in them), banners and placards abandoned and all around Mandelson a sense of panicked urgency.

  The lead tank only stopped when one of the Imperial College lot – Phillips, Mandelson vaguely recalled the name – found himself directly in its path. Whether he didn’t move out of principle or petrification, the snap of the braided-hair girl’s camera ensured he would no doubt be on the front page of most of the international press for the next few days.