” It’s just that being a vet can be so disappointing sometimes. Not at all what I expected. You were fun, different.”
Caitrin was lost for an answer.
He held out a thermos and a paper bag. “A peace offering? You’ll be getting hungry. Here’s a thermos of tea, an apple, and some slices of very tasty haggis my housekeeper Janet made for me.”
“Thanks.”
“Thank you,” he said, waved, turned the car and drove away.
She watched the lorry drive off the ferry and turn south down the only road. She waited for the ferry to return and boarded. It would be dark soon.
21
Bodyguard Thompson was rightly proud of his handiwork and hoped Churchill would be too. He waited until nightfall to present it, because that was when his gift would be most effective.
“This is for you, Sir,” Thompson said. “A custom-crafted gift from me. I made it myself.”
Churchill peered at the gift and growled, “You do know that’s my own walking stick you’re holding, Thompson.”
“Yes, Sir, it is, but this is the gift part. See?” Thompson pointed to a leather holder fitted to the handle. “It holds a torch pointed toward the ground so you can see where you’re walking at night.”
Churchill took the stick and switched on the torch. “That’s damn clever of you.”
“Thank you, Sir. I checked, and its brightness is well within blackout regulations, and if you like”—Thompson clipped a filter over the torch lens—“you can have blue light, or red.”
“This will save lives, or at least your face,” Churchill said with an impish grin. They both remembered a recent blackout walk through St. James’s Park when it was so dark Thompson walked right into a tree and moments later saved Churchill from a similar fate. He wagged the stick at Thompson. “But you must never ever call it a gift. It’s a present.”
“Why not?”
“Because in German gift means poison.”
“Beware of Nazis bearing poisons?”
“Clever of you, Thompson, clever and unexpected. Shall we go out and test your present?”
“Now?” Thompson said, knowing it was a pointless question to ask because Churchill was already marching to the front door.
He would never get used to stepping out of the Annexe building into a darkened London. It felt as though the wounded city was holding its breath, hibernating to heal. This strange period would linger in his mind until he died. He would remember two things most of all: the barrage balloons swaying above their heads like so many creaking gray elephants, as if they were listening to you; and the sound of footsteps. In the absence of the usual city sounds of cars, buses, and lorries, footsteps could be heard clearly. And after a raid they would become a constant brittle crunching over shattered glass.
“We’ll cross Horse Guards, go up to Duck Island Cottage, and make a loop around the lake and back over the bridge,” Churchill said. “That will give your present a good tryout.”
They crossed Horse Guards Road, and Thompson was relieved that, so far, it seemed the Germans were taking the night off.
“Convoy SC7 lost twenty out of thirty-five ships to U-boats on the Western Approaches,” Churchill said. “They got all the way across the Atlantic and died in sight of home.”
“That is terrible.”
“It is a grievous loss of men and matériel. And that flying fool Lindbergh is making speeches everywhere attacking Roosevelt about wanting to drag the Americans into a European war. The Americans lack a tradition, a history essential for a nation’s foundation,” Churchill said and pointed his torch at Duck Island Cottage. “Even that little cottage is part of English history. There’s been a version of it there since the 1600s. Once had pelicans, a gift from the Russian ambassador, and a crane with a wooden leg. And now there is a Victory garden planted—good work, if the ducks don’t get in there first.”
“We can always eat the ducks if they do.”
“We damn well might need to. Our men scared the families with warnings of Nazi paratroopers but found nothing untoward at any of the estates. Not a single crown or jewel. Not a Hector or a Caitrin. Where, then, are they?”
Air-raid sirens began their primeval moan, in the far distance at first, but the chorus grew louder and nearer. Thompson had been mistaken; the Germans were not taking the night off. The first anti-aircraft guns opened fire as searchlights stabbed into the night sky.
“I heard that a little girl in one of the bomb shelters referred to the air-raid sirens as the Wibble Wobbles,” Churchill said. “She was right. Out of the mouths of babes.”
“Don’t you think we should go in, Sir?”
“Go in—why?”
Thompson glanced up at the night sky. “This could be a bad one.”
“They’re all bad ones, and if the Londoners have to face them, so will I. There is one thing I do not understand, Thompson. The car and horse box arrived in Greenock a day early. The Talisman hadn’t even docked. Why do you think that happened?”
“I don’t know, Sir.”
“Lord Marlton and Miss Colline are both very capable people, and neither seem to me the sort that would get their arrival off by a whole day. Why don’t you give it some of your excellent detective thought?”
“Yes, Sir, I will. Perhaps a police bulletin sent out countrywide might help?”
“Good idea, but without divulging the Jewels. Pictures, though. Caitrin Colline will be easily identifiable with that mass of curly red hair. Mention her Welsh accent too.”
Aircraft engines throbbed over the sirens, and the first bombs exploded to the east, in the docks. Churchill seemed not to notice them as he pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. “I have been working on the radio speech I am to give the French people. Shall I read it to you in French or English?”
“English, Sir, if you don’t mind. I don’t know the other language,” Thompson said, which was true, but he was also well aware that Churchill spoke the most atrocious schoolboy French, made even more unintelligible by his speech impediment. Unfortunately he considered himself fluent, which meant that any discouragement to him giving the speech in French would surely be appreciated by the French people and spare him embarrassment.
“Very well, English it is. Listen to what I am considering saying.” He coughed, shook the paper, and read aloud, although Thompson was not fooled for a moment. Churchill knew his speech by heart; he just didn’t want to seem like a second-rate actor expounding to the world. “We fully intend to hammer the life and doctrine from Hitler and his creed. So, my French comrades, sleep well and prepare for the morrow, when the brave and the true will fight for their deliverance. The bright rays of freedom will shine on them and their path to glory. Vive la France! The common people will stride confidently toward their just and deserved inheritance. A new and promising age awaits those who dare to face their oppressors. On the horizon, yet close, is your France, brave, victorious, and forever the home proper of its heroes.” He slapped the paper. “There, that’s it. What say you to that, Thompson?”
