Agent Lavender: The Flight of Harold Wilson

by Tom Black

  “I expect that I shall have to send for Mr Heath come February,” The Queen said, slightly dour, “don’t you?”

  “Mr Heath has grown tremendously in stature whilst at the Treasury,” Mountbatten said, “I have every confidence that he is the man best poised to take Britain forward into the nineteen-eighties.”

  There was the slightest raise of The Queen’s eyebrows at that, but the First Lord of the Treasury pretended not to notice.

  “Perhaps,” she replied, “and it would be challenging to take the left entirely at their word, especially given their current leadership.”

  “I would trust Mrs Castle with my life, Your Majesty.”

  “I wasn’t talking about Mrs Castle.”

  There was another, slightly louder laugh at that.

  “I assure you that Mr Jenkins seems to harbour no intentions of turning us into a client state of the Central European Empire,” Mountbatten replied after a while, “despite what the Reform Party may occasionally tell the newspapers.”

  “In any case,” The Queen added, “better either of them than Mr Powell.”

  “Of that,” Mountbatten said levelly, “I don’t think that you need to worry. The chances of anything bar a healthy victory for the coalition government is very unlikely. The country still desires a couple of years of political stabilisation and careful economic management – especially as the new Industrial Relations legislation beds in.”

  “We need more than a couple of years for the people to regain trust in our institutions,” The Queen added.

  “They have a wonderful figurehead in yourself, ma’am,” Mountbatten replied, “and in Mr Neave, the Security Service has just the sort of capable Director it needs to reassure the public.”

  “The end of our long national nightmare, in that case,” The Queen said, “I always felt that President Ford conducted himself impeccably during those first wretched months in office.”

  There was a minute of quiet consideration between Sovereign and Subject, as both considered quite how much had changed since the November before last.

  As the silence was broken by the clock chiming the half-hour, Mountbatten spoke.

  “There is another matter which I must discuss with you, prior to the dissolution.”

  “Why prior to it?”

  “I should like history to know that I did this while still, technically, in office.”

  Mountbatten bent down to the briefcase he had brought with him. Swiftly opening it, he retrieved a bulky dossier of papers. He looked up at his monarch.

  “I have here a document outlining, as I see them, the excesses and failures of my government which ought to be answered for in court.”

  The Queen remained silent.

  “You will, I am sure, be aware of the arrangement reached with Sir Michael Hanley and his cadre.”

  Mountbatten stepped forward, bowing his head as he presented the dossier. The Queen turned to look at him.

  “I see.”

  The Queen took the bundle of papers and began to flick through them.

  “It’s very long,” she said, her voice flat.

  “I am afraid the situation did not allow for brevity.”

  Lord Mountbatten stood to attention. He allowed his gaze to rest on the golden clock on the mantelpiece, a gift from an Austrian – or was it a Prussian? – many lifetimes ago. Mountbatten stared, allowed his eyes to become transfixed on the small pendulum beneath it, and awaited to hear what he knew – or at least hoped – Her Majesty would say.

  “Dickie... this last chapter—”

  “Is about me.”

  “But—”

  “Justice has been served on those I enabled. I cannot protect myself from that same justice.”

  Her Majesty stared, blinking back a tear. Mountbatten thought of the blacklists, the detention warrants, the D-Notices, the shouts, and the screams. He thought of the letters from parents and spouses, begging for clemency. He thought of where he’d drawn his line in the sand, and how it ought to have been a hundred miles further forward than it was. His eyes, however, betrayed nothing.

  “Dickie,” The Queen said, finally breaking the deafening silence.

  “Your Majesty.”

  “Is this the only copy?”

  “It is.”

  The Queen held it, looking with some trepidation towards the fireplace. Mountbatten, sensing his moment, made his way towards the Drawing Room door. He paused as he made to turn the handle.

  “Whatever happens next, Bets,” he said, turning back to face her, “I should like you to know it really has been the most tremendous privilege.”

  “I can only imagine,” The Queen replied, faintly.

  Louis Mountbatten gave a weak smile. His face wet, he turned around and left Her Majesty alone. Out he strode, unable to stop himself breaking into a march.

  The Queen looked down at the papers in her hand. The fire crackled under the mantelpiece. As the Austrian clock gave a low chime, Elizabeth stood very still.

  Chapter thirty-six

  Thursday 20th January 1977 – 11:00am

  Peter Mandelson was up to something.

  There was nothing especially nefarious about exactly what he was up to – it certainly did not involve visits to Polish cultural centres and hushed, crackled telephone calls to Moscow – but there was a plan forming, nevertheless.

  He was now Secretary of the National Union of Students – and a number of people had already approached him to run for the Presidency as the Broad Left candidate now that Phillips had ruled himself out.

  He was still unsure if he was going to do so though – the position bored him, and he was rapidly learning that he much preferred running campaigns to actually being a candidate himself. His impassioned plea on Horse Guards Parade had made him the darling of the anti-Tankies and had been repeated a number of times on the ‘Year in Review’ special on New Year’s Eve.

  An informal meeting with a senior figure in the BBC had even opened the opportunity of him working for the Corporation itself – whilst that was clearly an attempt to have him reporting from inside the tent rather than denouncing it from outside. And so here he was – outside the Old Bailey, among about a few hundred figures of the left and right intent on picketing Wilson’s trial in some way.

  ‘Peter Mandelson – Political Correspondent’ – he had to admit that it had a nice ring to it – even if he himself had still not made up his mind about who he was going to be voting for. He had gone along to hear Peter Hain speak in support of the Continuity Liberals in Cambridge the other week and – whilst he rather liked Penhaligon – there was no point in supporting someone who was just going to split the anti-Junta vote.

  Peter pulled his coat tighter around himself, the warmth provided by his long walk to Old Bailey having faded. When he was passing through Leicester Square, he had noticed that Spycatcher had now opened. The Edward Woodward flick was based on Peter Wright’s case notes and apparently very sentimental at the end. A friend had told him it was actually watchable, but Mandelson suspected the British cinema-going public would soon have their fill of ‘Wilsploitation’ films. James Bond’s latest outing, The Spy Who Loved Me, had featured an ill-advised and hastily-written fifth act ‘twist’ whereby the unnamed PM, played by a no-name Yorkshire character actor, had absconded and sought to take ‘State Secrets’ with him to the Russians. Roger Moore had chased him down – improbably, in a speedboat – and seen to it that he would face justice. The critics were calling for the same fate to befall the screenwriters.

  Next year, however, there was apparently going to be a half-decent film coming out. Having bagged James Bond’s own Bernard Lee to play the eponymous turncoat, the makers of The Hunt for Harold Wilson claimed they would be presenting events as truthfully as possible, and the all-star cast made the film sound like more of a Longest Day than a Carry On. (Mercifully, the gossip pages had revealed that Peter Rogers had failed to drum up enough funding to finance Carry On Comrade.)

  Some predi
ctable fucker had brought along a guitar and was strumming a pedestrian rendition of The Admiral’s Army. Declan McManus And The Special Constables had enjoyed a fairly meteoric rise through the charts, and their second album ‘Uncivil Assistance’ was all anyone was talking about in the music pages. Peter had to admit he was a bit of a fan – but that didn’t mean he liked listening to an idiot in a ‘Free Harold Wilson’ shirt screech their way through ‘But it can be arranged/With just a word in General Walker’s ear’.

  No-one had seen or heard from Walter Walker in several months. Dark rumours circulated that the Mountbatten regime had dumped his body in the North Sea, but it was more popularly believed that he’d turned to drink and was holed up in some sympathetic friend’s country pile somewhere. Peter didn’t miss his ranting interviews, though he wished the same thing would happen to Enoch Powell. The Unionists were rising in the polls every day, and thanks to Jenkins, Crosland, Benn and Castle, the British left looked about as coherent as the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War (and somewhat less effective). More than one commentator had begun to speculate that the split on the left between Reform and Labour meant ‘the only man who can prevent Mr Heath’s return to Downing Street is Mr Powell’.

  “Talk about a rock and a hard place,” Peter grumbled as someone he didn’t recognise barged past him.

  There were a lot of people who he didn’t recognise. Not just facially – that was to be expected – but in manner and clothing. Shaven heads were normally the fare of the NF, not the NUS, though admittedly these big fellows could have got lost while looking for the large right-wing rally on the other side of the road, many of whom appeared to be demanding Wilson’s immediate execution. Unlike that protest, however, these men were not carrying large, rather grisly nooses. One of them was jostled by a couple of the Trots from Essex, and swore loudly in a foreign language. Mandelson’s ears pricked up. Was that… was that Russian?

  His thoughts were interrupted by a commotion and the sound of sirens.

  “I think he’s coming,” someone at the head of the crowd yelled, “I can see the police van!”

  Reconnaissance completed, Peter Mandelson was already in full retreat. Having learned exactly when and where to be at all times, he had a lunch date to be at. He hoped his companion liked Italian food.

  The most infamous man in Britain felt his stomach leap for a moment as the police van hit a bump in the road. The journey across town from Wormwood Scrubs had been otherwise uneventful – the cleared roads and motorcycle escort meant no chances had been taken. Paddick was sat opposite him, not taking his eyes off Wilson’s hands. Any attempt to engage the man in conversation had been rebuffed with a terse ‘shut up’.

  Paddick’s radio crackled to life and an urgent voice broke through.

  “Quite a few protestors in the road as you pull in, boys. Getting a bit rowdy. Just breeze past them at speed and it shouldn’t be a problem. Local uniform have got them behind cordons.”

  “Roger,” Paddick said into his radio, “we should be two minutes away.”

  The rest of the journey saw silence resume. This was rudely broken, however, when the driver – Gerry, Harold had determined – suddenly began shouting.

  “They’ve mobbed the bikes!”

  “Say again?” said Paddick incredulously. Harold remained very calm.

  “They’ve mobbed the fucking bikes! They’re on the ground!” Gerry said, revving the engine, “they’re breaking through the cordons!”

  For a revolution to break out at this exact moment would be quite ironic, thought Harold, as something slammed into the side of the van. Paddick’s eyes were wide as he grabbed his radio and began barking requests for instructions.

  “We can see you,” crackled the radio, “they’re coming at you from all sides. Try to drive through, we’re sending units down into the street to clear a path.”

  “Get out of the way!” screamed Gerry through the reinforced windscreen, the van lurching unpleasantly as a male voice cried out. Harold assumed they had run over someone’s leg. The bangs on the wall behind him were louder and constant now, and the doors at the back had begun to shake. He could just about make up some of the chants – almost without exception, they involved some play on the alliteration of ‘hang’ and ‘Harold’. He was sure he could hear someone doing the same thing with the word ‘hero’, though, and that person was interspersing his shouts with demands for Full Communism Now.

  Constable Paddick was uninterested in the political makeup of the people trying to smash their way into his van, especially when said people began hitting the rear doors very hard indeed.

  “They’ve got an axe! A bloody axe!” said the radio amid bursts of static. Paddick turned to look at the door, then shouted over his shoulder.

  “Will the door hold, Gerry?”

  “Not at this rate – oh, come on!” Gerry interrupted himself as a loud bang indicated someone had just taken a Stanley knife to one of the tyres. The banging continued, becoming a rhythmic drumming. Harold was starting to sweat, but remained seated. Paddick grabbed a helmet from the rack behind the cab, put it on, and lowered the visor.

  “We’re going out,” he shouted through the plastic, “if they get in here with that axe we’re as good as dead.”

  “It’s me they want!” Harold shouted as Paddick helped him to his feet, “just let them have me!”

  “Oh no,” said Paddick as he worked the lock, then looked back at Harold over his shoulder, “you’re getting a fucking trial, mate.”

  The doors flew open.

  The light rushed into the van, dazzling both Harold and Paddick as the former struggled to stay upright, and the latter swung his baton like Ajax at Troy. Paddick struck the man with the axe first, then tossed the implement into the van before anyone else could grab it. Gerry, now climbing back through the van, put on a helmet and stood shoulder to shoulder with his fellow constable. Harold had never expected such solidarity from the Met.

  The van lurched again – someone was presumably attacking the front – and Harold was propelled forwards. The mob parted for a brief moment as Paddick and Gerry whirled round, grabbing Harold as he fell out of the van and into the road. Still blinking from the bright light, Wilson rose to his feet, and finally took in his surroundings. Through the hail of assorted missiles, jeers and placards, he realised at last what he was witnessing. Because of him, the people had come together, had united, and were engaged in a mass display of civil disobedience.

  In a manner of speaking, he, Harold Wilson, had finally done it.

  There was a shout as someone punched him in the chest. Or, rather, he assumed someone did. Someone started screaming, and he looked down. A queer redness had appeared on his shirt. That would need to be washed, he thought. The policemen seemed to be holding him tighter now, which seemed silly as he felt so light. As the single scream was joined by others, and he found himself lying on his back, Harold thought the whole situation very queer indeed.

  “Carlos, another!”

  The broken – but improving – Spanish from his most regular customer brought Carlos to his feet. It was still morning, but custom was custom – and with the Havana sun beating down already, Carlos could hardly begrudge Señor Piedra a cool glass of Bucanero. His English guest was already struggling with the heat, and the sight of a beetroot-red middle-aged man in a wheelchair filled him with sympathy.

  He also paid dollars, which came in very handy in certain places.

  “Here you are, señor,” Carlos said, mopping his brow. The radio crackled as the station newsreader interrupted the usual smooth guitar, his voice raised. Señor Piedra looked up sharply as he recognised some of the words.

  “Carlos, please… translate,” he said with a grimace, “what is this from London?”

  Carlos translated. Piedra’s face fell. Carlos’ comprehension of English was worse than Piedra’s grasp of Spanish, but he understood ‘poor bastard’ well enough.

  “Did you know him?” the barman asked.r />
  “We went hiking in East Anglia once,” said John Stonehouse, and promptly drained his glass.

  It was a fine piece of Surrey stone. Jacob would have been pleased with it, Enid Brimley thought as she knelt down to place a small bunch of daisies at its foot. The crude wooden stake – categorically not a cross – that had been in its place would now sit above the fireplace at home. There had been an empty space there ever since the bust of Karl Marx had been impounded.

  “Thank you for helping me bring it here, Benjamin,” Enid said, straightening up. Mr Croaker gave a nod, his cap still doffed.

  “It was only right,” the farmer said firmly, “I was disgusted no-one else would help you.”

  “Well,” Enid said drily, “it’s a heavy bit of stone.”

  “We both know that weren’t the problem,” Croaker said through gritted teeth. Only a sense of place prevented him from spitting.

  “Yes, Benjamin, we do. Thank you, all the same.”

  “Jake was my neighbour,” Croaker said, “and whatever he did, he paid with his life. Least I can do is afford him some dignity.”

  It had been difficult to get the gravestone from St George’s Hill in the first place. A sympathetic groundsman on the estate had made the administrative headache only marginally easier, and having it hewn nearby had cost a pretty penny, but the hassle from the local constabulary had only strengthened Enid’s resolve. The stone’s weight meant bringing it out to the east by rail was the only option, but thankfully Benjamin’s (new) tractor had been more than capable of hauling it up to the cliffs, and to Winstanley Cottage.

  Benjamin and Enid stood for a few minutes in the sea wind, neither saying anything at all, then walked inside to have some cocoa. Enid heard the wireless was shouting about something or other, so she turned it off.

  “It is certainly a striking design,” Yuri Andropov was saying as an aide was ushered into his office, “but I am no artist. Does it give off the right impression?”