by Tom Black
Heath frowned.
“What are you suggesting?”
“I’m suggesting that the group responsible for this intended to kill many more people than they managed to, but they called in that warning when it was already too late so they could claim some moral superiority.”
“Unfortunately,” Heath said as the car started moving, “that does make an awful lot of sense. Have you – have you gleaned who was behind it?” He gestured towards the frantic handwriting on the note he had been handed and then passed on to Mountbatten. The First Lord of the Treasury gave a harsh, bark of a bitter laugh.
“I did say things were going to go back to normal, didn’t I, Ted?” he muttered as he handed back the note to Heath. Puzzled, Heath took it and scanned it for the first time.
“Ah,” he said as his eyes took in the very large letters that said ‘IRISH ACCENT’ at the bottom of the transcript, “I see what you mean.”
Lord Mountbatten did not reply. Instead, he looked down at the notes for his speech, still held tightly in his left hand. Without so much as a sigh, he calmly took hold of the last page and stuffed it into his pocket.
PART THREE
Life after Harold Wilson
Two months later
Chapter twenty
Thursday 22nd January 1976 – 7:00am
There was no-one around to hear it, but the sound of the conning tower breaking through the ice echoed for miles. The HMS Renown bobbed, then steadied, then bobbed again.
It was so far North that even the compasses tended to get confused. Technically, the ocean was under the nominal jurisdiction of the Canadian government, but this was a claim that did not even seem to carry much weight outside Ottawa and as a result, most people considered the area to be international waters.
The crew of the Renown did not pay much attention to the debate. Their considerations were considerably more immediate than a decades old controversy over the limits of international waters.
“C’mon,” Captain Idleworth said with a level of panic in his voice that he had hoped to have avoided, “we need to make the confirmation now.”
The captain fiercely chewed the inside of his cheek. It had been an unpleasant tour of duty for the crew of the Polaris-equipped submarine. As Idleworth had given the toast during a miserable Christmas lunch somewhere northeast of Spitsbergen, he had not been the only person in the galley who had wondered if today’s canned turkey would be their last. Mountbatten had not given the impression of being the most war-mongering of people, but that probably did not mean much to the new men in the Kremlin – certainly, the rhetoric coming out of Moscow and Leningrad had been one of ‘putschists’ and ‘coups’ – which rather seemed to be missing the point of everything.
“...I still cannot get anything!”
Smithson, the chief radio operator, stared at Idleworth. There was a trace of panic in his voice. Four months ago, there would have been nothing more than a sigh, a moan about defence cuts and a bashed radio before normality was restored. Now, Smithson was agitated, his eyes wide, and his thoughts doubtless with his wife and daughter in Coventry.
“Come on,” he yelled, shaking the set, “come on, you bastar...”
A sharp, long burst of static, followed by a flat voice.
“...although no statement from the Department has yet been received by the BBC.”
As Smithson rolled backwards, forehead shining with sweat, Idleworth let out a relieved gasp. He paused, having not even realised that he had been holding his breath. He wondered if anyone had ever been so pleased to have heard Des Lynam’s voice.
“...the Secretary of State for Industry, James Prior, has confirmed that the inaugural flight of the Concorde Supersonic Airliner will take place within the next few months. Speaking to the BBC last night, Mr Prior stated that the project remains of “vital importance” to the country and to Britain’s relationship with the rest of the European econom...”
“That will do, Smithson,” Idleworth said, “unless this ‘Concorde’ plan is code to tell us Cabinet are trying to get out of London as quickly as possible, I think we can assume mainland Britain has not been ‘substantially destroyed’.”
Smithson nodded, and turned the radio back towards the normal channels. Idleworth noticed he was still shaking.
The Captain looked around the cramped control deck of the Renown. It was at times like this when he pondered why the country even needed Polaris. It wasn’t as though he could even use them without the permission of the First Lord and he couldn’t give the orders unless he got told to by the President of the United States. He thought back to a conversation he had had with a young military attaché at the American Embassy at Christmas. In no uncertain terms, the man had simply clarified what he already knew; Britain was subservient – she had been since Suez – and it really did seem as if unilateralism presented a more effective way of getting back at the Yanks than meekly sending missiles soaring towards Murmansk.
Captain Idleworth put these thoughts to rest – judging by what he heard from home, that kind of thinking was a good way to end up in prison ‘for sedition’. But it seemed that home, for now, would still await them on their return.
“Descend!”
“...and despite Schmidt screaming blue murder about the suggestion to have yet another investigation of the German Social Democrats, his coalition seems to have approved most of the declaration points that emerged from the Summit.”
There was something reassuring about Sir Alec Douglas-Home, the First Lord of the Treasury thought to himself yet again. With his aristocratic brogue, entrenched propensity for calm reflection and tendency for diplomatic understatement, it was difficult to see him as anything other than Mountbatten’s Mountbatten.
The end of ‘Phase One’ of the Wilson Crisis had done nothing to slow the ‘hyper-premiership’ of Mountbatten’s government. No one at the second emergency Cabinet meeting on the day of the arrest been very surprised at his decision to rescind his resignation – but as the initial shock of having a Member of the House of Lords as Prime-Minister-Who-Isn’t-Prime-Minister had worn away, the peace camp on Horse Guards (which the Home Secretary had been so kind to allow back) had quietly added ‘Democracy’ to its name. Mountbatten had chuckled when he had found that out. To think – students who didn’t sit in either House were complaining that foreign policy was being run by two men who did!
The problem was, they probably had a point. So, after careful consideration, Home had already made it clear that he would be stepping down as soon as Gilmour had proven his worth or Reggie had de-stickied his fingers.
“Excellent,” Mountbatten said as the Foreign Secretary completed his briefing, “very good work indeed, Alec – I really cannot imagine what I would do without you.”
The 14th Earl of Home (which he, to all intents and purposes, remained) gave a polite smile at the compliment but remained silent. Mountbatten continued.
“I suppose that this brings us onto the dicey matter of the post-Copenhagen landscape.”
Home had not enjoyed Denmark. It had been cold, wet, miserable and the British Delegation had been given a hotel that was so far from the conference room that it had practically been in Sweden. However, the threat of ‘Security Council Reform’ had not been raised at all. Thankfully, the Germans had spent so much time trying to make Kissinger forget the time he had been rejected from the Gymnasium that Home had been able to spend the week wining and dining M. Sauvagnargues and rebuilding the Entente Cordiale. The Germans had displayed further misjudgement by distancing themselves so forcefully from the Cod Wars that every nation with a fishing industry immediately warmed to Britain. By Friday, the very idea of a ‘European Seat’ had vanished as suddenly as it had arrived.
“I don’t suppose that you fancy going to the European Commission, do you?” Mountbatten continued.
Home gave him a look that he had perfected during the war.
“I think not,” he said smoothly, “I don’t I could trust myself t
o be in the same room as Herr Schmidt without punching him on the nose.”
There was a polite laugh from the other end of the desk.
“I don’t think that we can send Jenkins any more,” Mountbatten said, “I suppose that it would be a good way to get Thorpe out of the way.”
Home found something to inspect at the bottom of his cup. It had been clear for the past couple of months now that something had been going on with the Lord President of the Council. Only last week, the Foreign Secretary had been early to a meeting and – breaking the good manners of a lifetime – had opened a door without knocking. The sight of Mountbatten, Heath, a senior-looking figure from Special Branch and the Lord Chancellor facing down the Liberal leader had been enough to make him hurriedly withdraw from the room, but only after he had heard ‘Exmoor’ and ‘shooting’ and, most alarmingly, ‘dog’ in the same sentence.
“Moving on,” Mountbatten said as a maid arrived, deciding that the last thirty seconds had not taken place, “what news can you bring me from Dublin?”
“Cosgrave is naturally going to be rather pouty in public, but behind closed doors he seemed decidedly unenthusiastic about Republican terrorists hiding around the border. I rather think he’ll ‘play ball’, as they say.”
“Excellent. There is a bit of a ‘something must be done’ attitude amongst the Staff,” reflected Mountbatten, “but I think a continuation of Mason’s deployment strategy is probably the right thing to do, at least for the time being.”
“Continuation? More like accentuation, surely?”
Mountbatten smirked.
“Well, quite. Numbers are up, but only for the time being.”
Home gave a polite smile and a nod as Mountbatten waved the hovering housekeeper over. Home had never been a great fan of coffee, but after two consecutive months of early mornings, late nights and jet-lag, he had come around to the concept of it. He helped himself to a crumpet as Mountbatten speed-read the International Herald Tribune, pausing at the results of the Iowa Presidential contest. Home had always found the idea of starting the race to become leader of the free world in the middle of the farm belt rather curious – it would be like the Labour Party having their Special Conference in Somerset.
“No one stood out in the Democratic Party,” Mountbatten said, “‘Uncommitted’ won, apparently, although that apparently doesn’t mean that they have to start again.”
“Kissinger said that the scrappy race and the lack of any real fall-out for the White House is probably going to help Ford,” Home said as he refilled his cup, “the Americans seemed to be rather pleased with how he handled everything when I was there last week.”
“You don’t think that Reagan is going to unseat him?”
“The fellow with the chimp?” Home said with a patrician smirk, “I don’t think so.”
Mountbatten found himself laughing out loud for the first time in weeks. He did enjoy Home’s company. As he glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece he realised their meeting had already overrun.
“I’m sorry, but we will need to reconvene,” he began, as the polite but perfunctory knock came at the door.
“A pleasure, as always, First Lord,” Home said smoothly, seeming to glide from his chair toward the exit. He stopped and turned smartly on his heel. After a short pause, he spoke again.
“I should like to say, Louis, if I may…”
“Go on, Alec.”
“I think you’re doing a tremendous job. Really,” the Scottish aristocrat said with a warm smile, “much better than I did.”
“Nonsense! But, that means more to me than you can know, Alec,” said Mountbatten, meaning every word.
The two Lords shook hands, and the soon-to-be-former Foreign Secretary left the room. Taking his place were the two knights that between them seemed to dictate most of Mountbatten’s daily life.
“Good morning, sir,” said Sir John.
“Thank you for seeing me, First Lord,” said Sir Michael.
Mountbatten skipped the small talk. It was bad enough that even after the Remembrance Sunday debacle and the handful of attacks since, Sir Michael had remained rigidly in place at Five. Too many Decent Chaps thought him the Right Sort to have there in a Time Like This, particularly as the ‘red libel’ regarding poor Hollis had begun to resurface with a vengeance. But to have Sir Michael smarming himself all over the walls of a Downing Street office was a bridge too far. The First Lord of the Treasury cut in.
“Sir Michael, you know I have my reservations about this meeting. I have done my best so far to ensure that cabinet government is preserved as a British institution.”
“Desperate times, First Lord—”
“These are not desperate times,” snapped Mountbatten, his growing distaste for the plump spook getting the better of him for a moment, “they are unhappy times, but there is no portion of my being which feels even an ounce of desperation.”
Sir Michael nodded sycophantically.
“A slip of the tongue, First Lord, I apologise without reservation. But all the same, if I may say, I am glad you have taken this decision.”
“I had a suspicion that if I did not, it might be taken for me,” Mountbatten said darkly. Sir Michael simply smiled, apparently attempting to seem ignorant of what Mountbatten could mean.
“Still,” the First Lord of the Treasury continued, “we had better get cracking. Are they here?”
“Waiting in room A, First Lord,” Sir John chipped in. He had, like much of the civil service, come to the conclusion over Christmas that it was best to just let things happen from now on – the usual attempts to ‘intervene’ in the name of moderation had all backfired so far. Mountbatten had noticed.
“Thank you, Sir John. Shall we?”
The walk to Cabinet Office Briefing Room A (someone ought to come up with an abbreviation, Mountbatten thought) took the three men past a number of relics of recent years. Mountbatten made a mental note (for the fourth time) to speak to someone about removing the photographs of Wilson meeting various foreign and domestic figures. The traitor’s portrait still hung in the stairwell, having been put there in 1964 next to Sir Alec’s. To remove it would seem a little too similar to ‘airbrushing’, but to dispose of the framed photograph of Harold triumphantly shaking hands with Donald Stokes would be less morally grey. Realising Room A was just ahead, Mountbatten stepped forward and opened the door, ignoring Sir John’s suppressed squeak at having his job done for him.
“Gentlemen,” he said as the men in the room rose from their seats, “I hope I have not kept you waiting.”
“Not at all, First Lord,” replied Cecil King.
Silence. Footsteps. Silence. Footsteps. The sound of a door being opened. Hands, too many to count. A futile attempt to keep up with a gathering pace. After a moment, feet dragging. A blurry view of an open doorway, obscured by jostling shoulders in black. A moment to catch one’s breath as most of the hands let go.
A chair scraping across the floor. Wrists grabbed, shackles applied, and light exploding into the room by way of a dangling bulb. A man in a grey suit. A man in a black suit. A man in a green tunic. A shouting man. A quiet man. A threatening man. An unconvincingly friendly man.
Then, a man with a metal briefcase. Light glinting off scalpels. A knuckleduster landing loudly on the table. Sleeves being rolled up. Shouting. Guards being sent outside. Shouting. Newspaper laid out on the floor. Shouting. Shouting. Shouting.
“Can we stop now, please?” said Harold Wilson, “I have a headache.”
Incredulity. Threats.
“Well, no, you won’t, will you?”
A grasp by the collar. The shackles stretched to their full extent. The smell of foul breath.
“I’m afraid it’s all a little bit obvious.”
A painful drop back into the chair. Swearing.
“You’ve rather given the game away, you see.”
Silence.
“I’ve been here for fifty-seven days and apart from a bruise or three, and a
broken toe, I’m still right as rain. Did you not think that there might be a law of diminishing returns on empty threats of torture?”
Staring. The man in the grey suit entering, trying not to look out of breath.
“Now, as far as I can tell, my medical examination – which I was miffed not to learn the results of, by the way – has told you something about my ticker that has you worried. If I drop dead, you’ll get nothing out of me.”
Scowls. The return of the man in the black suit.
“On top of that, there’s the fact that the Admiralissimo has declared I’m going to have what’s considered a ‘trial’ in this country. That’s not likely to be a quiet affair, and I daresay you won’t want the world’s press snapping shots of anyone – even me – walking around with, as you so delicately put it, ‘one eye and no bollocks’.”
Silence.
“All of which leads me to conclude, gentlemen, that there’s nothing you’re allowed to do to me beyond the odd punch in the back of the head. So could we please skip over this today? I’m tired, and it’s fairly obvious I’m going to be of no use to you.”
Silence. Footsteps. Darkness.
“See you tomorrow!” Harold Wilson said through the bag that was now over his head.
Enoch Powell breakfasted slowly. It was a habit he was starting to become rather fond of as – despite his best intentions – he was starting to become rather pleased with the looks that he was starting to receive from the bright young things of the Conservative Party, many of whom had had their wings clipped since Heath had returned to the front-bench.
The Members’ Dining Room was not as busy as it usually was on a Thursday – Lord Mountbatten having taken the decision to replace the two sessions of “First Lord’s Questions” with a weekly one on Wednesday. He glanced around the green-wallpapered chamber, smiling to himself at the sight of Michael Foot and Tony Crosland talking in an excitable fashion over their bacon and eggs.
