“That’s right, darling,” King George VI called to her as the chill wind picked up. “Just bend your knees the slightest bit. Brace yourself for the recoil. Then squeeze.”
She did, and the gun fired with a loud bang that caused a murder of crows in a nearby oak tree to shriek and take flight. The bullet hit its intended target forty paces away—a wooden cut-out shaped like a man. On its face was a photograph of Hitler’s.
“Jolly good!” the King exclaimed. “You got him right in the n-n-n-naughty bits.”
The Queen, in a Wedgwood-blue coat and hat that matched her eyes perfectly, smiled. “Good,” she said. “That’s where I was aiming.”
When Scottish aristocrat Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon had married Albert, Duke of York, the second son of King George V and Queen Mary, she’d never expected to become Queen, let alone a wartime one. But when Edward, the firstborn son, had abdicated the throne to wed Wallis Simpson, Albert had become King George VI—and Elizabeth had become his queen consort. When the Blitz began, she reached out to her people, touring the decimated East End, offering comfort and support to the grieving and homeless. For her steely inspiration, Adolf Hitler had called her “the most dangerous woman in all of Europe.”
The palace’s black-clad butler walked up to the King and Queen and bowed. “Your Majesties,” he said, then gestured to the bald, stout, pink-faced man in a dark pin-striped double-breasted suit behind him. “The Prime Minister.”
“Welcome, Winston!” the King said, as Winston Churchill bowed.
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” he answered in his gruff smoke- and whiskey-laced tones.
The Queen smiled as the P.M. bowed and kissed her offered hand. “Your Majesty,” he said.
“Care to take a shot, Mr. Churchill?”
“I would love to, ma’am. Alas, I’m afraid I’m fighting Mr. Hitler on a far less literal plane.”
“We’re learning how to defend ourselves.” The King indicated the target. “Getting better.”
“Good,” Churchill said. “We’ve made it through the Battle of Britain, but, just between us, invasion’s still a distinct possibility. Glad you and the Queen decided to stay in England, though. Keeps up morale.”
“Halifax wanted us in C-C-C-Canada—do you remember? And the girls, too.”
A corner of the P.M.’s mouth twitched. He and Lord Halifax, a supporter of Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement policies, didn’t agree on much. “Didn’t surprise me at all, sir.”
“Well, living at Windsor Castle’s been wonderful for them,” the Queen said. “All that fresh country air. And it’s easy enough for us to see them on the weekends. They’ve transformed one of the dungeons into a bomb shelter, can you believe?”
Churchill cleared his throat. “Your Majesties, we’ve heard some radio chatter indicating the Germans are going forward with the plot we discussed recently.”
The King took the gun from the Queen. “Nazis want to replace me with Edward, do they? The Duke of Windsor can stage his abdic-c-c-ation, in reverse?” His fingers squeezed the trigger and the bullet exploded into what would have been Hitler’s kidneys.
“A little higher, dear,” the Queen said.
“Have that w-w-w-woman wear a crown?” The King’s tones indicated the contempt he still felt for Simpson, the American divorcée for whom his brother abandoned the throne. “She had an affair with Ribbentrop!”
Joachim von Ribbentrop had been appointed ambassador to Britain with orders to negotiate the Anglo-German alliance. Wallis Simpson had been a regular guest at Ribbentrop’s social gatherings at the German embassy in London; it was rumored that the two were having an ongoing affair. It was also rumored that Ribbentrop might have used Wallis Simpson’s access to the then King Edward VIII to funnel important information about the British to the German government.
“Von Brickendrop,” the Queen said, using Ribbentrop’s London nickname, inspired by his cloddish manners and tactless behavior, “sent her seventeen carnations every day she was in London. Seventeen, allegedly for the number of times they made love!”
“The Nazis hold Mrs. Simpson in high regard, yes,” the P.M. said. “She was always one of their biggest supporters, from the beginning. But what we’ve heard is that the Germans not only want to assassinate you, sir, but kidnap the Princess Elizabeth as well—since she’s first in line to the throne. At fourteen, she’s old enough to rule.”
The King blanched. “Lilibet …”