Winston’s War. Michael Dobbs

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       FIVE

       Guy Fawkes Night – 5 November 1938.

      It was one of those nights that would change everything – although, of course, no one knew it at the time. And as was so often the case Max Aitken, the first Baron Beaverbrook, was to be its ringmaster.

      They had gathered together at the summons of the mighty press baron to celebrate the torture and execution more than three centuries earlier of that quintessentially British traitor, Guy Fawkes, who had attempted to destroy the entire Houses of Parliament, King included, by stuffing a cellar full of gunpowder. He had been apprehended at the critical moment with candle in hand, and executed by having his entrails dragged from his still-living body, burnt in front of his face, then having his beating heart plucked out. Sadistic, mediaeval Europe – before the twentieth century turned torture into a modern science of factories and furnaces.

      The weather had relented after weeks of skies filled with rain and Roman auguries. A full moon hung overhead, an ideal evening for the lighting of the traditional bonfire which had been constructed in the grounds of Beaverbrook’s country home at Cherkley. The garden and walkways had been turned into a fairy grotto by countless candles concealed in old tin cans, while Boy Scouts from the local troop were on hand to cook sausages and chicken legs over charcoal barbecues and to dispense mulled wine loaded with cinnamon and pepper. They had also erected tents and canvas awnings to provide shelter if the sky changed its mind and turned against them. Beaverbrook, ever the showman, had even instructed that chocolate eggs and sweets should be hidden around the grounds for the children. No one was to be left out of the fun. So to Checkley they had come, the good and the great, the famous and those still seeking fortune, more than two hundred of them wrapped in their furs and astrakhans and silk scarves and hand-warmers, giving thanks for the column inches they hoped they would receive from the Express and the Standard and putting aside how many of those past inches had been cruel and indecently unkind. Yet press barons have no monopoly on unkindness.

      ‘You are …’ – the Minister paused for thought, but already it was past thought, too late for anything other than gut emotion – ‘being ridiculous, woman. Hysterical. A disgrace to your sex.’

      ‘Only a man could be so stupid.’

      ‘Ask anyone. Neville is the greatest Englishman who ever lived.’

      ‘He makes me ashamed to be British.’

      ‘You dare talk of shame!’

      ‘Meaning?’

      ‘God’s sake, aren’t you tired of climbing into Winston’s bed?’

      ‘He might yet save us all.’

      ‘What? The man who’s killed off more careers than Caligula. Who’s filled the graveyards of Gallipoli.’

      ‘He’s a prophet –’

      ‘Nigger in a woodpile with a box of matches.’

      ‘… pointing to our mortal peril.’

      ‘All the more damned reason for doing a deal with Hitler, then.’

      ‘You’d deal with the Devil.’

      ‘I support my Prime Minister. Loyalty to my own. Something you wouldn’t recognize.’

      ‘I recognize naked cowardice.’

      ‘I resent that, madam. I oppose your silly war because it will destroy civilization.’

      ‘War against Hitler may be the only way to save civilization!’

      ‘Madness. Pure madness. Are you Jewish, or what?’

      And all that from colleagues who sat on the same Conservative benches.

      It had started with laughter and gaiety and one of Beaverbrook’s little jokes. (He had a notorious sense of humour – some argued that it had been developed to compensate for his notoriously absent sense of fidelity.) He had given specific instructions about the making of the guy that was to be burnt on the fire and it had arrived with some pomp, seated on an old wooden chair decorated with flowers from the hothouse and pushed in a wheelbarrow by a groundsman. The guy was large and overstuffed, as all good guys should be, bits of straw and paper sticking out from an old woollen three-piece suit that had been plundered from the back of a wardrobe for the occasion. Particular attention had been given to the face, which was round, bald, with a scowling expression and an open slit for a mouth. The arms were spread, as though making a speech. The guests who were crowding about Beaverbrook in the darkness applauded its entrance and drew closer to inspect.

      ‘So, whaddya think of the villain of the piece, Sam?’ The question was delivered in Beaverbrook’s characteristic style, with a broad Canadian accent and out of the corner of his mouth.

      Sam Hoare, the Home Secretary and one of the four most powerful men in Government, studied it carefully, his wife by his side.

      ‘Guy Fawkes tried to blow up every politician in the land. No wonder they remember him, Max.’

      Laughter rippled through the guests. They included diplomats and entertainers as well as politicians and press, all gathered around a charcoal brazier for comfort while they waited for the ceremonial lighting of the large bonfire.

      ‘Fawkes was a foreigner, of course. Spanish,’ someone added from the darkness.

      ‘Hey, ain’t nothing wrong with foreigners,’ Beaverbrook insisted in a theatrical hokey twang.

      ‘Just so long as we can ignore most of them, eh, Max,’ Hoare added.

      ‘But we can’t ignore them, Sam, that’s the whole point.’

      The СКАЧАТЬ