Churchill led the way through a secret door, camouflaged in the library’s books, to the Cromwell Passage, and then to the Hawtree Room, which he’d commandeered as his study. There the Prime Minister threw himself into one of the leather club chairs. Nelson rubbed up against his shins.
The P.M. reached down to scratch Nelson under the chin, and the cat started purring—but then froze at the rumble of German planes flying overhead, flattening his ears. “Don’t worry, darling Nelson,” murmured the Prime Minister, continuing his chin scratches, “just remember what those brave boys in the RAF are doing.” Nelson, named after the venerable Lord Horatio, was prone to hiding under beds during air raids.
“Come, dearest Nelson,” the P.M. crooned, patting his lap. “Up!” The cat jumped up, kneaded a bit, then settled in, wrapping his tail around his compact body and closing his eyes.
There were five men in the Hawtree Room at Chequers Court: Sir John Dill, Chief of the Imperial General Staff; General Ismay, chief staff officer and military adviser; and Churchill and his two private secretaries.
Since the P.M. was known to say, “A change is as good as a rest!” and resting wasn’t possible, Churchill often decided—at the last minute, to the consternation of his detectives and staff, not to mention his wife—to travel.
Although a fire crackled in the room’s fireplace behind bronze fenders, behind the blackout curtains the windows were loose and rattled in the wind, a damp chill in the air. The men sat on chairs with faded petit-point seats at the enormous mahogany pedestal table, under the watchful eyes of a painting of Cromwell’s General, John Lambert. All waited for the meat of the discussion to begin. There was a globe on a stand in the corner, with territories marked from the midthirties, now hopelessly out of date.
Mr. Inces, his footsteps muffled by the Ochark carpet, carried in blue-veined Stilton and plum bread on Frankenthal dishes, and a cut-crystal decanter filled with amber liquid that glowed in the firelight.
“Stilton and port are like man and wife,” the P.M. intoned. “Whom God has joined together, let no man tear asunder.” Then, “Damn it, Inces, pour the port!”
Churchill took a greedy sip and swallowed. “I hear Popov made it to the U.S. Told that Hoover chap at the FBI about the Pearl Harbor survey from the Germans. Didn’t seem to make much of an impression, though, according to my sources at MI-Six.”
“The Yanks are disorganized, sir,” David said, pushing up his wire-rimmed glasses. “The Army doesn’t talk to the Navy and the Navy doesn’t talk to the Army. On any given day, neither of them may be talking to the President. And Hoover’s supposed to be the worst of them, in terms of cronyism and iron-fisted control over information. Controlling, petty—”
“That’s enough, Mr. Greene!” the P.M. said, taking another gulp of port and slipping a tiny sliver of Stilton to Nelson. “But I did hear that when Mr. Hoover discovered our man Popov had taken a woman from New York to Florida, he threatened to have him arrested under some ancient American blue law if he didn’t leave the U.S. immediately.” He shook his head in mock despair. “Yanks—often licentious, and yet suspect of pleasure. It’s their beginnings, you know. No matter where they come from, they’re all affected by America’s Puritan beginnings. And what about the Orient? Granted, Herr Hitler is keeping us more than occupied in the Atlantic, but the Japanese have now bound themselves to him and Mussolini. And their atrocities in the Far East are just as savage as the Nazzies’.”
“Just in China, though,” said Dill.
“ ‘Just in China’?” the P.M. boomed. “They’re starting with China, an amuse-bouche, just as Hitler started with Austria and the Sudetenland. First China, then French Indo-China? The Dutch West Indies? Our own Hong Kong and Singapore? If they went after our colonies, we couldn’t take them. Not with all of our manpower needed in the Atlantic. I asked Roosevelt for a few ships from his Pacific Fleet, do you know what he said? No!”
The booming voice had grown thunderous. “He said, and I quote, ‘It’s not the job of the United States to steam around the world, shoring up other people’s empires. We don’t like empires, no matter whose flag they fly.’ ” He gestured with his glass of port, spilling some on the linen tablecloth. “Damn Yanks!”
“Well, as a former British colony themselves …” David began. John gave him a swift kick under the table.
The P.M. didn’t notice. “It would serve them right if the Japanese attacked them in the Far East—they might not have ‘colonies,’ but they do have territories. Guam, the Philippines, Samoa. Even their Hawaiian Islands are territories, not a state of their union …”