“With due respect, sir. There are inherent dangers….”
Churchill shook his head and pointed at Thompson with his cigar.
“The man’s an old worrywart, a male Cassandra. I am the very model of inflammatory,” Churchill said, offering a mischievous grin. “It is the nature of the business at hand. I am not an ostrich, Thompson.”
He grew thoughtful for a moment then intoned:
Hang out our banners on the outward walls;
The cry is still ‘They come!’ Our castle’s strength
Will laugh a siege to scorn…
He grinned. “God help us if the Macbeth outcome repeats itself in our case.”
“Forewarned is forearmed, Mr. Churchill,” Thompson said, retreating from his earlier comment, surrendering totally.
“You see, I’ve rebuked him into submission.”
Thompson shrugged and turned toward Victoria.
“Discretion, Miss. What you hear in this room is for your ears only. And the words you are recording are for your eyes only.”
“My keeper,” Churchill mused. “He sees conspiracies everywhere.”
“I’ve learned that concept at your knee, Mr. Churchill.”
Churchill sucked on his cigar and puffed deeply.
“I’m sure Miss Stewart has been thoroughly instructed by the first secretary on the nature of her role here.”
“Absolutely, sir,” she said, agitated by the necessity to dissimulate.
But then, her relationship with her lover was grounded in secrecy and deception. It was indeed conspiratorial. In for a penny, in for a pound, she thought, dismissing this sudden pang of conscience. Although she was privy to the various intrigues swirling about the embassy and was reasonably informed about what was going on, she was well indoctrinated and aware of her discreet role as an embassy secretary. She had been carefully vetted and investigated by the hiring authorities at the foreign office.
At this stage, her interest was solely and exclusively on her lover and his concerns, which she deemed in the best interest of His Majesty’s government. She felt certain that the reason for his request was exactly as stated, to protect the former prime minister from the blunders of overdramatizing and exaggeration. Besides, she felt slavishly and emotionally bound to honor Maclean’s every request in all matters.
Of course, she was, while hardly interested in the details, fully cognizant that her boss was an advocate for good relations with the Russians. He seemed to go out of his way with his colleagues to press that point home. In his letters and in the minutes of meetings she had taken, his mantra was to maintain the wartime bond with Moscow. She felt certain that, as he had stated, he would raise the matter with Halifax or with Churchill himself if the speech raised issues contrary to the policies of the government. It had no relevance for her. What Maclean wanted, she would give him.
Although Churchill tolerated Thompson’s interruption, it did set his mind going in yet another seemingly disjointed direction.
“I wish I could have been more forthright at Yalta. Unfortunately, Roosevelt and Stalin were dominant, and I found my role to be that of a gadfly. Some of the byplay was appalling. Stalin, I realized, was bloodthirsty. Although he treated it as a joke after I called him on it, he was all for the assassination of all Nazis above a certain rank. He wanted to dispatch a hundred thousand on a killing spree. I wanted to regurgitate! When he asserted this, I had to leave the room.”
He shook his head and his expression struck her as one of profound regret.
“Franklin disagreed, of course, but not in such a public and emotional way. He truly believed that his infinite charm and good humor would seduce the marshal into coming his way. Stalin played along, as I see it now. Worse, I was not as forceful on key points. The man didn’t trust me anyway, so where was the loss? We should have taken Berlin.”
His cigar had gone out. He looked at it, and Thompson quickly obliged when he put it back in his mouth.
“Twenty-twenty hindsight is a curse to be reckoned with. Perhaps, we can undo some of the damage,” he muttered, then shrugged and turned to face his typist, who remained poised and ready.
But he continued to digress: “But you see, we wanted Stalin’s help with the Japanese.”
He took a deep puff on his cigar and expelled the smoke at the side of his mouth. Then his eyes seemed to glaze over, a clear indication that his mind was elsewhere.
“That bomb,” he said. “Can you imagine? It wiped out ninety-five percent of human life in four square miles. And that is not the end of it. We are learning about radiation sickness and its terrible effect. Nevertheless, Truman’s decision to use it was necessary. The war might have been prolonged for months, perhaps years.”
He turned suddenly, shook his head. Victoria, by then, knew the difference between his digressions, offhand comments, and asides and the speech text. Suddenly, he plunged again into the speech.
“It would nevertheless be wrong and imprudent to entrust the secret knowledge or experience of the atomic bomb, which the United States, Great Britain, and Canada now share, to the world organization that is now in its infancy.”
He shook his head as if to emphasize the point, then continued, “It would be criminal madness to cast it adrift in this still agitated and disunited world. No one in any country has slept less well in their beds because this knowledge, and the method and the raw materials to apply it, are at present largely retained in American hands.”
He paused again, obviously forming the words in his mind before expelling them. The reference to the horror of the bomb seemed to animate him and his phrases now had a pugnacious quality. He was less stammering, more relentless. Perhaps it was his delivery, but the meaning of the words did penetrate her understanding. She noted peripherally that Thompson was raptly attentive, but made no comment. He apparently knew when his interruptions would be welcome and when not.
Churchill, totally concentrated now, continued: “I do not believe we should have all slept so soundly had the positions been reversed and some Communist or neo-fascist state monopolized for the time being these dread agencies.”
Victoria felt chilled by his words.
“Last time, I saw it all coming and cried aloud to my own fellow countrymen and to the world, but no one paid attention. Up until the year 1933 or even 1935, Germany might have been saved from the awful fate that has overtaken her, and we might have been spared the miseries Hitler let loose on mankind.”
He seemed suddenly deeply troubled, hesitated, shook his head, and said, “And our tight little island might have been spared so much agony and destruction.”
Suddenly, he turned to Victoria with a sweeping gesture.
“‘This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.’” He cleared his throat. “John of Gaunt’s soliloquy in Richard II. I love those magical lines.”
His eyes moistened, and taking out a large, white handkerchief from the pocket of his dressing gown, he blew his nose.
Toward afternoon, Churchill seemed to flag.
“I must have my bath,” he muttered.
Victoria stiffened. Not that, she thought.
Thankfully, Thompson summoned her to another room in the suite with a desk and typewriter. Sandwiches and tea were laid out beside it.
“He will expect the draft of what was dictated this morning to be cleanly typed and ready when he finishes his nap.”
Victoria eyed the pages and nodded.
“Must I type it in verse?” she asked.
“Only the last draft,” he replied. “We’ll begin again after lunch. Prepare to work late, Miss Stewart. The PM likes to finish a first draft so that he can work on it in bed before retiring.”
“I understand, sir,” Victoria said.