‘Well, gentlemen, I think that concludes the business on today’s Cabinet agenda. Thank you for your …’
Before he could finish there was a waving of a hand somewhere on his left side. Churchill turned to peer over the circular frames of his spectacles and spotted Ernest Bevin gesticulating for his attention. No interruption from Bevin was ever welcome. The Minister for Labour and National Service had done a grand job squeezing every last screw, brick and bullet out of the factories while heading off any serious strike activity, no one could deny that. But he was a died-in-the-wool, red-blooded, black-hearted, callus-handed Socialist, and the sooner Churchill could dispense with this wartime coalition and throw the Socialists out of the Cabinet, the better.
‘Prime Minister, not yet if you please,’ Bevin insisted, a quizzical, lopsided expression stretched across his leathery face which gave the impression of his being slow and dogged, like a rumpled blood-hound searching for a lost trail. Every syllable betrayed his West Country origins, but that hadn’t stopped him climbing out of the gutter and ascending very far – as far as Churchill’s left hand. ‘I’ve ‘ad some disturbing news this morning. I was called up at ’ome by a journalist from America’s CBS …’
Churchill frowned disparagingly, making no attempt to hide his view of anybody who made himself available to journalists at home in the morning.
‘Talked of reports about a great POW escape in Yorkshire last week. The details were sketchy, but the ‘ole rotten camp got out, ‘e said.’ There was a slight pause while he considered how to frame the question before deciding, as he normally did, that bluntness was better than politeness. ‘What about it? What’s going on, Prime Minister? Is it true? What ’ave you been ’iding from us?’
It was too much for Churchill. He was tired, very tired, and despite his ministrations the pain in his shoulder was getting worse. He’d been looking for someone to lose his temper with all morning since Clemmie had started up again with her endless nagging about his ‘extravagance’ and worrying about how they were going to pay for everything from his cigars to the new drains at Chartwell. With his wife he had a lifetime’s practice of closing his ears and gritting his teeth; with Bevin he could find no cause for self-restraint. With alarming abruptness the PM’s fists beat upon the makeshift Cabinet table. His pen flew from the blotter and performed a full somersault, while the lid of the red despatch box in front of him came down with a crash.
‘How on earth are we expected to run a war when we are bombarded with questions like that? Whose side is your reporter friend on, for God’s sake? Hasn’t Hitler made our lives difficult enough without half the American press corps snapping at our heels?’ Churchill’s shoulders were hunched and rounded, his solid forehead thrust forward like a bull about to charge, an impression made all the more acute as in the surge of excitement his glasses slid to the end of his nose to reveal furious red eyes.
There was not a sound from within the room beyond the exertions of the Old Man’s breathing. The Cabinet Secretary had stopped taking notes while most of the others in the room found things at the edges of their blotting pads which required their urgent attention. Only Bevin seemed unperturbed.
‘For the record, Prime Minister, the man’s a journalist, not the Gestapo. And I’d like an answer to my question. Seems simple enough to me. If any of what ‘e ‘ad to say is true I think the Cabinet ‘as a right to know.’ He returned the glare.
Churchill needed to play for time to recover his composure. It was all very well losing his temper, but only if it had a point and gave him an advantage. There was none in this.
‘Has anybody else picked up this sort of gossip?’ He made it sound as if he were making enquiries about a venereal disease. He glowered around the room, finding little response until he lit upon Beaverbrook, his close friend and Minister for Production, who was clearly agitated. Beaverbrook had tried urgently and unsuccessfully to catch him before Cabinet but, as usual, Churchill had been late and in a rush – delayed by Clemmie’s damned nagging. Had Beaverbrook been trying to warn him? Beaverbrook knew all the gossip running around Fleet Street – hell, he owned half of it – and now he was nodding his head as if to confirm what Bevin had said. He looked forlorn, biting his bottom lip, implying that even with his immense grip on the media there was little chance of bottling this one up. But he remained silent and Churchill was grateful for that, at least; it helped give him a means of escape.
The Prime Minister coughed to break the awkward hush. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I’m glad such inaccurate reports have not yet been widely circulated, because it gives me the opportunity to tell you the facts. This is a serious security matter, which is why it has not been included explicitly on the Cabinet agenda, although it had always been my intention to raise it today under “Any Other Business”.’ He shot a venomous glance at Bevin, daring him to challenge the lie, but all he got back was an inscrutable stare from behind pebble glasses.
‘There was indeed a large escape last week from a camp in Yorkshire,’ Churchill continued, the flush slowly disappearing from his cheeks, ‘not, I hasten to add, as large as the wild rumours we have just heard might indicate.’ He took from within his ministerial box the note which Cazolet had prepared for him on a daily basis since the break-out. Statistics. More damned statistics, but he was grateful for them now. ‘Ten days ago there was a mass escape from Camp 174B – a camp guarded by Canadians.’ Nice point that; colonials were to blame. ‘A total of two hundred and forty-seven Germans were involved.’
‘That’s the biggest blinkin’ break-out of the war …’ There was a gasp of astonishment from around the table as the scale of the fiasco sank in.
‘The Cabinet will appreciate, I am sure, what impact news of the event might have had in the wrong hands. It might have caused panic amongst the public and could have given succour only to the enemy. As it is’ – he scanned the note – ‘two hundred and eleven of the prisoners had been recaptured by seven o’clock this morning. The incident has been contained, almost snuffed out, and the damage it might have done has been avoided. Only thirty-six remain at liberty, by this evening that figure will be lower still.’
Only thirty-six. The man had nerve. He made it sound like a triumph. At any other time the news of so many escaped POWs would have seemed like a national humiliation, heads would have rolled, but in Churchill’s hands and now, as victory approached …?
‘It is a glowing tribute to our security forces that the escapees have been rounded up so quickly. In spite of the initial misfortunes of our Canadian cousins, the incident has proved a testament to the success of the police, the armed services and, of course, this government in coping with these unique and unforeseen circumstances.’
‘Hear, hear,’ Beaverbrook growled, setting aside the temporary embarrassment of his Canadian birth.
‘So I was right,’ Bevin snapped, sniffing the air as if trying to scent the weakness in Churchill’s explanation. ‘Why didn’t you tell us right off about this? Why did we ’ave to smoke you out? You know what you’ve done? You’ve given ’em time to get away.’
‘It was merely a tactical security matter, nothing more.’
‘You call the largest POW escape of the war a “tactical security matter”?’
‘To the extent that there were any security implications involved I, as both Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, was kept constantly informed. The constitutional requirements have been fully satisfied.’
Churchill felt more relaxed, he was regaining control. He had always planned to make an announcement, but later, in his own time, when the figures of those still at liberty were even smaller and more manageable, less likely to create silly sensationalist headlines. And if it gave one or two escapees a little more time, well, it was a price he could live with. His hand had been forced, but once it was out in the open it wasn’t half as bad as he had feared. And Bevin had lost the floor; someone else was raising a question.