‘I’m sorry, sir. I can’t tell you. I can only tell the Americans.’
‘Who know it already.’ Churchill nodded. ‘You do not wish the knowledge to spread.’ Churchill’s voice took on a stern note. ‘Even to us, your country’s friends.’
‘I’m sorry, I can’t tell you. I was promised I wouldn’t be asked.’ He gave David an anguished look.
‘He was promised,’ David said. ‘We were told that was what the Americans wanted. It was the only way he would come with us, sir. Frank – Dr Muncaster – feels the knowledge is too dangerous to spread.’
Churchill glared at him. ‘Speak when you’re spoken to! Damned impertinence! What are you, a junior civil servant?’
David put his hand over his pocket. If he could reach . . .
Churchill looked back at Frank. He was trembling but he looked Churchill straight back in the eye. Churchill pursed his lips. There was silence for almost a minute. David felt sweat trickling down his brow. Then Churchill said, ‘Dr Muncaster, you are an honourable man.’ He turned to Colville. ‘The agreed arrangements will go ahead. Our promise to the Americans and to this man will be kept. The submarine is still off Brighton, isn’t it? It is a debt of honour. To America, whose support under its new President is vital, and to this man. I will not have a promise I made broken, an innocent man sacrificed!’ Churchill banged his fist on the desk, glowering at Colville.
‘Actually, sir,’ Colville replied, ‘I agree with you. But a lot on the military side don’t.’
‘Bugger them.’ Churchill looked at Frank, then Ben and David. He addressed Frank, very quietly. ‘You would not let the Germans take you alive, would you?’
‘No, sir.’
‘You are quite certain?’
‘Yes.’
Churchill looked at Ben and David. ‘And that goes for you all?’
‘Aye,’ Ben said, looking at Churchill directly.
‘Yes, sir,’ David answered. ‘One of us has already died.’
Churchill turned to Colville. ‘Then get them to Brighton. Right now.’ He got up, slowly, grasping his stick, and came round the table. Frank stood. Churchill gave an odd, quick, rubbery smile, as though his emotions were about to break through. Then he shook his hand. ‘Good luck to you,’ he said. He made his way over to David and Ben and shook their hands too. ‘I wish you all a safe journey,’ he said. Then he lumbered slowly to the door, which Colville opened for him, and went out. The two guards followed, leaving them alone.
Ben sat down again. ‘Jesus bloody Christ,’ he said.
David went over to Frank, who was staring across the desk at where Churchill had been sitting. ‘You all right?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ Frank said quietly. ‘I think so.’ He looked between them and said quietly, ‘Thank you.’
Ben said, ‘Can we trust him?’
Frank said, ‘Yes. I saw it, in his eyes. We can.’
A movement outside caught David’s eye. A little group of people was walking across the lawn, towards the house. Among them, he saw Natalia.
Chapter Fifty-One
THE CAR DROVE ALONG DEEP Sussex lanes, between high banks lined with trees. They had made good time driving south from Chartwell; it was early on Monday morning and the roads were almost deserted. David remembered his first journey to Birmingham to see Frank. Only a fortnight ago, it seemed like another world. He had still worked at the Office then. He thought of its routines and customs, people like Dabb and Hubbold. He understood now how stifled and crushed he had felt without realizing it, before Charlie died even. His stomach lurched as he thought of Carol, her career over, too, and his dead friend, Geoff. He was sitting next to Natalia, her warmth pressed against him. He glanced at her and she smiled. His heart had lifted when he saw her from Churchill’s window. Now he felt desire again. Why did the sexual urge, which God knew hadn’t troubled him that much before in his life, keep returning now? Was it partly because, as Ben had said, you looked for solace in times of danger? But it was more than that, he knew; he was, like Natalia, in the end, rootless, in a time when rootlessness was dangerous: rootless and alone.
After the meeting with Churchill, they had spent a day resting at Chartwell. They had not been allowed to leave their room, so David had not seen Natalia again. Outside, they heard a constant murmur of voices, ringing telephones, sometimes running feet. At sunset the thick curtains had been drawn over the windows again.
In the evening they had a briefing meeting with an officer they had not met before. They were told that the following morning they would travel by car to Brighton. They were given yet another set of identities. The four of them – David, Ben, Natalia and Frank – were to be a funeral party, going to Brighton for the interment of an elderly aunt. They would stay in a boarding house while final arrangements were made for the American submarine waiting in the Channel to pick them up; they weren’t to be told exactly where from yet. David and Ben and Frank were all to be cousins, and Natalia David’s wife; with her accent, she could hardly pass as an Englishwoman’s niece. David supposed Frank wasn’t in a fit state to pass as anybody’s husband, and maybe they knew Ben’s secret and thought him unsuitable for the part. Sarah, they were told, was already in Brighton, and the boarding-house owners had just been contacted to say the party was on its way. Sarah would be told, but they must pretend not to know her.
They had set off from Chartwell at nine on Monday the eighth, in a big black Volvo. David realized that the reason they only phoned their people in Brighton yesterday was because, until Churchill’s decision, they might not have been going at all. Frank might have been under interrogation now, or even dead. Churchill had made his decision partly because Frank had touched his sense of honour; he wondered if that had been the deciding factor, the turning point. He looked at the back of Frank’s head; like the other three men he wore a dark, heavy coat and black bowler. He still found it incredible that Frank had stood up to Winston Churchill, actually told him to his face that he wouldn’t reveal his secret.
‘What did ye think of Churchill, then?’ Ben asked the company. ‘I could’ve fallen off my chair when he came in.’
‘He is very old,’ Natalia said. ‘I saw him in the corridor yesterday and it brought it home. Old and very tired.’
‘He’s almost eighty.’ David thought she was right, he had looked ancient, desperately burdened and weary.
Ben said, ‘It’s working people that carry the burden of getting rid of these Fascists. One of our leaders should be in charge, Attlee or Bevan. Or Harry Pollitt.’
‘Churchill has been a leader against Fascism since the thirties,’ Natalia replied quietly.
‘To preserve the Empire. Though even he knows that one’s lost now.’
‘He understood,’ Frank said suddenly.
Ben looked at him. ‘What d’ye mean?’
‘He understood me.’
There was silence; nobody quite knew how to answer. The car crested a hill and in the distance, across miles of undulating downland dotted with sheep, David saw the sea, blue and sparkling under the wide sky. Frank leaned forward, stared at it and smiled.
They arrived at the hotel, parking the car outside. They got out and took their suitcases from the boot, looking carefully round the narrow street. The weather was very clear and cold, no wind. The sea was at the end of the road, blue and dead calm. Ben came and stood beside David, leaning close. He said, very quietly, ‘There aren’t going to be any problems involving your wife and Natalia, are there?’
David turned, frowning. Ben met his gaze firmly. ‘You ken what I mean. She’s probably waiting for you inside. We can’t afford any problems among ourselves, not till we’re safe away.’