Target Churchill

Chapter 20

Churchill, apparently unable to sleep, returned to the sitting room, dressed in his siren suit. He had with him a world atlas, which he carried with him on all trips. With Thompson helping, they proofread Victoria’s typed stencils. Occasionally, one of them would find a spelling error, and Victoria Stewart would correct it.

With a brandy beside him, his cigar lit, and his glasses perched on the tip of his nose, he read the last page of his speech and grew reflective, then read the closing few lines aloud: “If we adhere faithfully to the Charter of the United Nations and walk forward in sedate and sober strength, seeking no one’s land or treasure, seeking to lay no arbitrary control upon the thoughts of men; if all British moral and material forces and convictions are joined with your own in fraternal association, the high roads of the future will be clear, not only for us, not only for our time, but for a century to come.”

He nodded his approval and looked at Thompson for comment.

“Quite eloquent, sir,” he replied.

“Eloquent, Thompson?” He removed his glasses and peered into his own reflection in the darkened window.

Victoria, the corrections made, sat silently, awaiting further instructions. Her mind, at this stage, was seething with uncertainties. For some reason, her sense of menace had accelerated.

“It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.”

Although the statement was addressed to no one in particular, Thompson apparently felt the need to comment.

“Well, sir, in a hundred years, no one of us will be around to test the accuracy of your prediction.”

Victoria sensed that the remark was designed to lighten Churchill’s mood. It did not seem to make a difference. He seemed gloomy, his demeanor a far cry from his earlier buoyancy.

“You have a point, Thompson, but the speech is dark enough without ending on a note of pessimism.”

“You sound tentative, sir.”

Churchill fell into a long profound silence. Then he spoke.

“‘The weight of this sad time we must obey. Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.’ I’m afraid the habits of a lifetime of politics hold sway in those words. And yet, it could be true that, in historical terms, a hundred years is a mere snapshot.” He seemed to perk up. “And, of course, I have referred to caveats. But there is no doubt that the Russians will throw obstacles along the way. And who knows what will transpire in the wake of changes in the world order? The British Empire is crumbling, Thompson. I am afraid that world, where we held sway, is over. But what will happen to those pieces of empire when we vacate the premises? God knows.”

He upended his brandy pony.

“Another, sir?” Thompson asked.

Churchill shook his head and stood up, then turned to Victoria.

“I have forgotten to provide a title for the speech. I wish to call it ‘Sinews of Peace.’” He smiled. “Shades of Cicero — he used that phrase. Perhaps some Latin teacher at the college might understand the irony.” He chuckled. “Poor Cicero! He was assassinated.”

He opened the atlas and turned to the page containing Europe and studied it, then ran his finger over the map, tracing it.

“Indeed,” he mumbled. “We are a divided continent.”

“Your iron-fence reference, sir?”

Churchill nodded, shook his head, then grew silent.

“I’ll have the speech reproduced for the press, sir,” Thompson said.

“Keep it under wraps, Thompson.”

“I shall guard it with my life, sir,” Thompson said, with a touch of amused sarcasm.

Churchill smiled and nodded, opened the door to the bedroom and, still carrying the atlas, closed it behind him.

The remark about the assassination of Cicero opened a wellspring of anguish inside Victoria. She typed the title of the speech on the first stencil, then slumped over the typewriter, and began to sob hysterically. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She couldn’t stop herself.

Thompson seemed alarmed. He pulled a clean white handkerchief from the upper pocket of his jacket, gave it to her, and wrapped her in a fatherly embrace.

“I can’t,” she began. “I’m so sorry.”

“Easy, young lady. It’s the strain. You’ve been working very hard.”

“What he said…,” she sobbed barely able to catch her breath, “…about Cicero.”

She wiped her tears and took deep breaths. He released her and poured her a brandy.

“Drink this, Victoria. It will put you to rights.”

Inexplicably, it was the first time he broke his formality and used her first name. She sipped the brandy, noting that her hand shook. She felt the warmth suffuse her and took a deep breath, the compulsive emotional outburst waning. Her head was clearing. She knew the source of her sudden eruption.

“I have betrayed you,” she said, her voice reedy, her stomach tightening.

Thompson looked at her, his forehead showing lines of confusion.

“Betrayed?”

She started to speak, stopped before she could get out any words, then pulled herself together, and spoke finally.

“I have not kept your confidence, Mr. Thompson. The guilt is upsetting me terribly.”

A sob began deep inside her. To tamp it down, she took a deep swallow of the brandy.

“Perhaps I have fallen into deep waters. I feel as if… as if I’ve been drowning.”

“Easy now, Victoria. Speak calmly. You say you have betrayed us. How?”

“I’ve given a copy of Mr. Churchill’s speech to the first secretary, against your orders of confidentiality.”

Thompson shook his head. He was obviously confused.

“Knowing the confidential nature of your assignment, did he request it?”

“He did.”

“Did he tell you why?”

“He said that he wanted to be sure that the speech conformed to the current policies of Mr. Attlee. If it had not, he told me he and the ambassador would discuss it with Mr. Churchill — in general terms, sir. The first secretary promised he would not reveal what I had done.”

Thompson shook his head and looked at her sympathetically.

“Well, then,” he said in a soothing tone. “You reacted to an order from your immediate superior. I understand your dilemma, Victoria. Confronted with such a choice, I might have done the same myself.”

“No, you wouldn’t, Mr. Thompson,” she whispered. “Not you. I should have informed you of his request from the beginning. I didn’t. I deliberately betrayed you.”

Thompson grew thoughtful.

“I suppose Mr. Attlee and the opposition are by now completely aware of the text. I can assure you that neither the ambassador nor Mr. Maclean have discussed any matter of policy with Mr. Churchill.”

“There’s more,” Victoria said.

“Oh?”

Thompson looked at her sharply. She hesitated and swallowed.

“The Russians have it as well.”

Although he maintained a calm façade, she saw a pulsing tic suddenly begin in his jaw.

“How do you know?”

“I….”

She hesitated. This was the hardest revelation of all. She was having second thoughts, silently begging her lover for forgiveness. Perhaps it was all appropriate conduct for a high-level diplomat. Hadn’t he explained that diplomacy often took bizarre turns? She felt certain he was innocent of any wrongdoing and — she hoped — when all this was over, he would understand why she had to unburden herself.

She told Thompson she had inadvertently seen the first secretary hand the speech to a man whom she followed to the Russian embassy.

“It might have been perfectly appropriate,” she said. “I’m not sure.”

Then she remembered the words that had bitten deep into her psyche.

Must I? she asked herself then blurted the words.

“When he read the draft, I had given him, he said….” She emptied her brandy glass. “…He said that Mr. Churchill….” She could not continue.

“Yes?” he prodded.

“He said that Mr. Churchill had signed his death warrant.”

Thompson seemed stunned.

“Good God!”

“He blurted it out,” she explained. “He often does that when angry.”

When pleasured, too, she thought. He could be ardent and uninhibited at the supreme moment — she, as well. Unfortunately, the memory only added to her guilt, like a double-betrayal.

“Are you sure you heard correctly?”

She nodded.

“It frightened me, Mr. Thompson. I’m still frightened.” She shook her head. “I’m so sorry, so terribly sorry I didn’t speak sooner. It was driving me mad.”

She watched as Thompson grew thoughtful, then he turned to her.

“It seems so… out of context. Perhaps he was reacting to something specific to the speech itself. Stalin, for example.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” she admitted, although it did not assuage her fear.

He rubbed his chin and frowned.

“Marshal Stalin is not my concern,” he said.

He seemed suddenly distant, obviously wrestling with the ramifications of what she had revealed.

“Will you tell Mr. Churchill?” she asked.

He grew more pensive, then turned and looked out the window into the darkness, seeing little but both their reflections in the glass. Then he turned to her, his eyes met hers, and she could feel the power of their penetration.

“I need your trust, your absolute unequivocal trust. Can I ask that of you?”

“Considering what I’ve told you, can you or Mr. Churchill have any faith in my reliability?”

He smiled and patted her arm.

“We are both believers in redemption, Victoria.”

“I appreciate that, sir,” she said, drawing in a deep breath. “And I’ll do anything to prove myself. As for trust, depend on it.”

“This, Victoria, is between you and me.”

She nodded vigorously, exhilarated by a strong sense of solidarity.

“For now, Mr. Churchill cannot be privy to this, not on the eve of this important event.”

“Of course, sir. I completely understand.”

“On the matter of this Russian connection, may I say, it might be perfectly innocent, some diplomatic folderol; nevertheless, it does deserve some attention. Are you with me on this as well, Victoria?”

He surveyed her face with intensity as if trying to read beyond her expression.

“It might clear your mind of any uncertainty about the first secretary. Or….” He paused, as if pondering her reaction, “…It might not.”

Inexplicably, the consequences of her affair with Donald Maclean and the betrayal it entailed crossed her mind. She was thinking of his wife, Melinda, an unwitting victim of their clandestine passion. What Thompson was asking now was for her to keep yet another secret. But this time, she felt no guilt, rather an enormous sense of her own personal value, something that she had never calculated before.

“I would welcome that, sir.”

“It may, at first, seem bizarre, perhaps unseemly to ask of you. But you must trust my judgment on this, Victoria, and follow my instructions to the letter. Am I clear?”

“I’m ready to cooperate, sir.”

She felt certain that her belief in her lover’s loyalty would be fully vindicated.