In his own plush armchair, while the rest sat behind, in metal folding chairs, the Prime Minister growled, unlit cigar clenched between his teeth, “Mr. Greene, please start the projector. Mr. Sterling, turn off the lights.”
His two private secretaries did his bidding, and soon the room was dark, filled with the noise of the whirring projector and then the black-and-white images projected onto a screen.
When Lord Nelson, played by Laurence Olivier, said, “Gentlemen, you will never make peace with Napoleon … Napoleon cannot be master of the world until he has smashed us up, and believe me, gentlemen, he means to be master of the world! You cannot make peace with dictators. You have to destroy them—wipe them out!” the P.M. rose and shook his fist at the screen.
He turned toward the audience, who did their best to rouse themselves and look attentive. “I’ll have you know I wrote that line—and several others of Nelson’s! Just fill in ‘Hitler’ wherever ‘Napoleon’ appears and have done with it!” he barked, stabbing the air with his cigar for emphasis.
“Winston …” his wife, Clementine Churchill, said from a brocade settee behind the P.M.’s armchair.
But Churchill paced in front of the screen, mouthing Nelson’s words. “Yes, things were different when we were here five years ago, weren’t they? Our braid was shining in those days. Today they won’t even let us anchor in the harbor. It’s as though we had the plague. They’re so scared of Bonaparte they daren’t lift a finger to help those who are still fighting him …”
Then he stopped his pacing. “Turn off the damn projector! Mr. Greene! Mr. Greene!” David Greene jumped to his feet to do the P.M.’s bidding.
“And Mr. Sterling—let there be light!” John Sterling switched on the lights. The two private secretaries exchanged a knowing glance. They knew from experience that whether the film was done or not, movie time was over.
David Greene was the shorter and slighter of the two, with light hair and silver-rimmed spectacles. He and his friend, John Sterling, had worked for Winston Churchill during his so-called Wilderness Years, when no one in the House took his warnings of Nazi armament seriously. Now that he was almost thirty, his former impish charm had become somewhat subdued, yet another casualty of the war.
John was taller, with curly brown hair and dark eyes and a grim smile. He wore his RAF uniform well, his body not betraying, at least to the casual observer, the injuries he’d survived in Berlin.
The enormous bookcase-lined Long Gallery was chilly, even though a fire burned in the grate and the floor was covered in Kazakh rugs. The room smelled of book restorer and wood smoke. Churchill began to pace, his round face pink from the prodigious quantities of Pol Roger Champagne and red Burgundy he’d put away during dinner. “Do you know that that damn isolationist group, the so-called America First Committee, calls That Hamilton Woman ‘wartime propaganda’? And has called on the U.S. public to boycott it? Apparently, the AFC sees them as ‘preparing Americans for war.’ ”
He kicked a metal wastebasket, and Nelson, the P.M.’s black cat, who’d been curled up on one of the folding chairs, started, then scurried away. “No one named Nelson—man or cat—ever runs from a fight!” Churchill shouted after the feline, shaking his fist. “And of course we’re trying to rouse the damn Americans. They’ve sat on their fat—”
Clementine shot her husband a warning look.
“—posteriors long enough. The Nazzies have sunk the USS Robin Moor, the Kearny, and the Reuben James. Do they have to invade the East Coast and march on Washington before President Roosevelt will declare war?
“Meanwhile,” Churchill continued, his voice rising in power, as if addressing the back benches of the House of Commons, “they’re wasting time rounding up filmmakers when they should be after the bl—”
He shot a look at Clementine, who arched one eyebrow in warning. “… the Nazzies,” he amended, in a gentler tone, using his usual and distinctive sibilant pronunciation.
“Winston, darling,” his wife said, rising, “if you’re done with the film, I think I’ll retire for the evening. Good night, love. Good night, all.” The gentlemen stood as Mrs. Churchill, with her fine posture and impeccably cut silk dress, walked out in a trail of Arpège. The rest of the women, including Churchill’s daughter Mary, also excused themselves.
When they were gone, Churchill gave a fierce battle cry: “Gentlemen,” he thundered, rallying the troops, “to the Hawtree Room!” As he stalked out, he called over his shoulder to his beleaguered manservant, “And Inces! We shall require both port and Stilton!”