I had heard that Churchill was normally a talkative man and the silence in the car was becoming one of those that you feel must be broken. What had Mr Churchill known about me and Joe before we met, that had made his staff confuse us?
Joe and Birgit had moved to the north of England soon after they married at the end of 1936, renting a house on the Cheshire side of the Pennine hills, near Macclesfield, but I had seen hardly anything of either of them since I left university. The last occasion was when we met at our parents’ house during one of my leaves. That was the week of the first Christmas of the war, an occasion of bitter arguments between us which ended up with my leaving the house in a rage, infuriated by Joe’s intractable attitude and beliefs, and feeling, wrongly as it turned out much later, that my father was taking Joe’s side against me.
I had not seen or spoken to Joe after that: in our different ways we became caught up in the war, I more obviously in the RAF. At the beginning of 1940, Joe successfully applied to be registered as a conscientious objector, afterwards starting to work for the Red Cross. I was bitterly regretful that he and I had not been able to patch up our differences before he died, but that was not to be. Much of what he had gone through in his last months was unknown to me.
Our motorcade was passing through areas of much heavier bomb damage, where many burnt-out buildings stood looming over the road with their smoke-darkened walls and blank windows. The sky could be glimpsed through their roofless shells. Not all such damaged buildings remained: many had been demolished and the rubble cleared away, allowing new vistas across to other parts of the city. I saw St Paul’s Cathedral, still more or less intact, having famously survived the worst nights of the Blitz, but it was surrounded by acres of levelled ground, ruined buildings and bulldozed heaps of rubble.
At last I spoke.
‘Mr Churchill, last night you mentioned my brother Joseph. May I ask what you knew about him before he died?’
For a moment Churchill did not seem to react. Then he turned to look at me.
‘I’m sorry, Group Captain. I know nothing more of your late brother than what I told you last night.’
‘You implied he was known to you in some way. You said your staff had been confusing the two of us.’
Mr Churchill looked back out of his window, not burdening himself to answer.
The man who was in the seat beside me, presumably a member of Churchill’s staff, suddenly spoke.
‘Group Captain Sawyer, we are passing the Bank of England. It remains undamaged, as you can see. And the Mansion House. I think you’ll find as we move further down towards the docks that the destruction gets worse.’
I nodded politely. The Prime Minister’s answer had piqued rather than satisfied my curiosity. He had in fact told me nothing at all about Joe during our short meeting.
‘Is this your first visit to London since the Blitz?’ said the man beside me, persisting.
‘Yes. . . yes, it is.’
‘The damage must seem terrible to you. Did I hear you say you had a brother who was killed in action?’
‘No, it wasn’t like that,’ I said, distractedly. ‘Not in action. He was a civilian.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. My own brother’s in the Royal Navy, you know. Commands a destroyer, out on the Atlantic convoys. Nasty job sometimes.’
‘Yes, so I hear.’
‘Did you ever fly any naval liaison missions. Group Captain? My brother speaks highly of the RAF.’
‘I’m not attached to Coastal Command,’ I said. ‘I’ve never worked with the navy.’
‘I must arrange an introduction for you to the C-in-C Western Approaches. Good man. I’m sure he’d be fascinated to meet you. Look,’ he said, pointing across me and the Prime Minister into the distance, over another field of rubble. ‘Tower Bridge is still standing. The Luftwaffe uses it as an aiming point, you know. They line up on the docks by using the river and they know where they are when they see the bridge. They could knock it out if they wanted to, but it’s probably more useful to them left as it is.’
So it went on, the flood of chatter from the man beside me, removing any possibility of my pressing Mr Churchill on what he might have known about Joe.
After we passed through the City the visible damage became even more extensive than before, at one point the road narrowing to a single lane that wound between two immense heaps of rubble. Policemen were on duty here, waving our convoy through. They saluted the P.M. as our car went by. Afterwards we crossed the Mile End Road - my companion the civil servant smoothly identified it for me - then joined a narrower road leading down to the river. Here the car slowed to a gentle halt. The other two cars pulled up behind us.
Two uniformed policemen emerged from one of the intact buildings at the side and together with our driver set about lifting back the convertible roof and folding it into its special place at the rear. The drizzle, still misting down as it had done since first light, began to settle on us.
The Prime Minister watched the operation of removing the roof calmly. When the driver was back in his seat at the front of the car, he stood up, bracing his weight on the long metal handle that was at the front of the compartment.
‘Gentlemen, it’s usually left to you to decide whether you should stand with me or remain seated,’ he said. ‘Because of the weather today, from which there’s no escape, you might prefer to take it on the chin with me up here. It’s actually rather more comfortable to be standing for short distances. You’ll discover, Group Captain, that a firm grip on the handle in front of you will keep you steady.’
The civil servant and I both stood up, finding, as Mr Churchill said, that with all three of us on our feet it was possible to stand in some comfort. Churchill felt around in his pockets, but the civil servant was already ahead of him. He produced a box of matches and struck one of them. He held the flame steady so that the P.M. could light his cigar.
Churchill took two or three deep pulls, turned the end around in his mouth to moisten it, then declared himself ready. The car moved forward at about ten miles an hour.
Behind us the other ADCs were also standing up in their cars. Steadily our little motorcade headed down into the wasteland of blasted homes, warehouses and dock installations.
We came around one particular corner and I saw that the Women’s Voluntary Service had erected a large tent, from which hot food and drinks were being handed out. A large crowd was clustering around it, but a sizeable number of the people on the edge of the crowd were looking expectantly towards us. The moment our car came in sight, an immense cheer went up and everyone began waving and yelling enthusiastically. People inside the tent rushed out to join the crowd. Everyone was waving. Some people were clutching Union flags. The noise was tremendous.
Mr Churchill immediately raised his hat, waved it in a jovial fashion and held up his big cigar for everyone to see. The cheers redoubled.
‘Are we downhearted?’ he cried.
‘NO!!’ came the immediate response.
‘Give it to ‘em, Winnie!’
‘We can take it!’
‘Dish it out, Mr Churchill!’
‘Give the Jerries all we’ve got!’
The car drove steadily on. A smaller crowd beyond the tent heard the noise and as soon as we hove in view another great commotion arose. Mr Churchill waved his hat, beamed at the crowd, puffed expressively on his cigar.
‘We can take it!’ he said loudly.
‘We can bloody well take it!’ they responded.
‘Give ‘em as good as we got!’
‘Give old Adolf what he deserves!’
‘God Save the King!’
‘Hoorah!’