He gave the thinnest of smiles, turned on his heel, and left. Caitrin heard a key turn in the lock and the click of Untersturmführer Heiko von Eisen’s jackboots.
36
Bodyguard Thompson liked going by train almost as much as did Churchill, and both enjoyed traveling in Saloon 45000, Winston’s luxurious private carriage. Built in 1920 for the chairman of the London Northwestern Railway, the exterior was a gleaming crimson lake with cream edging. Inside, it had bedrooms, a dining room, staff quarters, and, for Churchill, the inevitable bath. Although the journey from London to Birmingham would take only a few hours, it did mean Thompson would not be chasing after Churchill over some perilous bomb site while urging him to wear his tin helmet. And safe in the carriage, Churchill got to wear one of his flamboyant dressing gowns as he worked. At the moment he was dressed in a floral-patterned one and reading the Times.
“The Nazis bombed Birmingham Town Hall, the university, and the Spitfire factory in Castle Bromwich. I shall hear all about the last one from Beaverbrook, after he resigns, or tries to, yet again.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“What do you think about Kennedy?” Churchill asked Kathleen Hill, his long-suffering and patient secretary sitting behind her silent typewriter.
“Kennedy?” she said, startled by the question.
“Brave Joe Kennedy. As soon as the first bomb dropped, Kennedy raced away from the American embassy and out of town to his house in the country. But the Germans almost got him there.” Churchill laughed, or growled—it was hard to tell the difference sometimes. “There’s a joke going around the Foreign Office. They say, I always thought my daffodils were yellow until I met Joe Kennedy.”
Kathleen laughed, but it was a polite and inoffensive English laugh.
“Americans and their love for the showy,” Churchill said. “Lindbergh’s attacking Roosevelt again, and with what qualifications, may I ask? Roosevelt comes from a fine family of good pedigree used to command, while Lindbergh’s lineage is what? His sole claim to fame is that he sat on his bottom for hours staring at an aircraft control panel and then managed to miss England altogether and land in France, of all places.”
He paused to light a cigar but was obviously not finished. “They are an easily distracted people, the Americans, and prefer style over substance, comfort over command. Thinking does not come easily to them; they believe it hurts. Worse, they’re convinced it’s not manly.”
“They are a different lot, Sir,” Thompson said.
“They are men who look like us and speak somewhat the same language, but there the similarity ends. We need them, though. We need their weapons.”
Kathleen got up from behind her typewriter to pour Churchill more tea as he scanned the newspaper. “A bomb hit Virginia Woolf’s home in Bloomsbury and exploded a week later. Destroyed the place. Woolf wasn’t there, fortunately for her, but it might mean an end, or at least a temporary cessation, to all the fluttering-hands-woe-is-me-for-being-a-woman writing.”
Bristling in response to his, “woe-is-me-for-being-a-woman writing,” Kathleen made as much fuss as she could rattling the teapot and rolling a fresh sheet of paper into the typewriter. She was even tempted to whistle, knowing how much Churchill hated it, but that might have been passive resistance taken a step too far.
Churchill frowned. “The latest Blitz numbers: thirteen thousand killed, twenty thousand wounded, and still I am pressured to negotiate with the Germans.”
“Surely not, Sir?”
“Surely, yes, Thompson. Even within my own party, there is frequent mention of my so-called capricious ego and its love of glory. They say if I agree to an armistice, Hitler will instantly make some grand emollient speech to smooth the troubled waters, while mentioning that sadly, family feuds are often the most intense. He will excoriate the cowardly, surrendering French and put most of the blame on them, while noting our similar German and English backgrounds. Praise for our Anglo-Saxon heritage, a mention of England and Germany fighting together, Wellington and von Blücher against Napoleon at Waterloo, and probably chuck in Victoria’s Prince Albert to season the pudding.”
Thompson stayed silent as Churchill put down his newspaper and picked up a folder marked MOST SECRET. He opened it and read aloud: “ ‘Die Brücke. All of the following persons should be considered as fervent Nazi sympathizers and likely members of Die Brücke: Harold Sidney Harmsworth, Viscount Rothermere; Archibald Ramsay, MP; Ronald Nall-Cain, Second Baron Brocket; David Bertram Ogilvy Freeman-Mitford, Second Baron Redesdale; Joslyn Victor Hay, Twenty-second Earl of Erroll; Arthur Charles Wellesley, Fifth Duke of Wellington; Walter Francis John Montagu Douglas Scott, Ninth Duke of Buccleuch; and Charles Vane-Tempest-Stewart, Seventh Marquis of Londonderry.’ ”
He paused and exhaled a deep breath. “As I read these names, I hear the clarion call of Caitrin Colline’s voice when she eviscerated Lord Hector for the length of his name. I cannot imagine what she would do to these fine gentlemen.”
“No, Sir,” Thompson said, and he too could hear that insinuating Welsh voice.
Churchill grinned. “And can you imagine what she would do with Dr. Leigh Francis Howell Wynne Sackville de Montmorency Vaughan-Henry?”
“He’d end up as Franky.”
“Mrs. Hill, would you leave the room for a moment?” Churchill said, and Kathleen exited as he turned to Thompson. “I need the innermost thoughts and counsel of an Englishman, unadulterated by title or politics.”
“Sir?”
“What would you think if I were to announce publicly that the Crown Jewels had been stolen?”
Thompson fought for a reply. Churchill filled in the empty space. “It would be a terrible shock at first,” he said and waved a finger as his voice rose. “But if later the Germans did admit to having them it would most likely stoke English fury, rather than bring about collapse. Perhaps arouse world sympathy too. How would you feel about that, as the common man?”
“Shocked, Sir,” Thompson said.
“Or what if, at the moment of triumph, the Nazeez were to discover they had been thwarted, hoodwinked even, in some unexpected way. Imagine then the pride in our plucky men and women. Would that not be an amazing episode in this sorry war?”
“I suppose so, Sir.” Thompson wrestled with what to say next because he was more than a little puzzled.
“This is no time for prevarication, Thompson. This is a moment for honesty.”
“Yes, Sir, I understand. And in all honesty, it’s somewhat confusing, and I would give it a little more time.”
“Why?”
“Because Caitrin Colline is still out there somewhere and where there is—”
“Where there is Colline, there is hope?”
“Yes, Sir. A very slender hope, but it’s all we’ve got.”
“I’m not exactly sure how she can save the day now. She disappeared into thin air aboard our Flying Dutchman freighter, the Celtic Twilight.”
“Perhaps I’m grasping at straws, and perhaps it’s a peculiar Welsh talent, Sir, or a woman’s thing, but she does seem to reappear out of thin air, just when you’re quite sure she’s gone forever.”
37
Decades of paint had layered the windows shut, while the steel security bars, although rusty, were close together and still strong enough that Caitrin would not be making an escape that way. There was little else in the room that might help her, but at least she knew her captors. She could not see them but instead listened, concentrated, and learned who they were. To begin with, although Untersturmführer Heiko von Eisen was not the kind of officer to enlist inadequate men, and escaping would not be simple, no one was perfect. If you knew how to observe, and she had been well trained, there were always weaknesses. Being a methodical German, von Eisen had assigned three men to guard her. They were the same three men, and each stood the same eight-hour shift, twenty-four hours a day.
