Never Surrender. Michael Dobbs

      The Minister stooped once more. ‘I’m a little mystified myself. It’s not easy to explain but … I thought – I think – that Winston’s temperament, however unreliable and impetuous, may be better suited for this particular moment than perhaps is mine.’

      ‘You don’t sound terribly certain of it,’ the King commented.

      ‘I’m not. Certainty is a luxury at times like these. But think of it this way, if I were Prime Minister I would have Winston prowling up and down outside Downing Street. You know how much damage he can cause when things go to his head. So better the tiger inside the cage.’

      ‘With you holding the key.’

      ‘Yes, something like that.’

      ‘Until he has been either tamed or trampled by events,’ the Queen added. ‘Nothing lasts for ever in this chaotic world, Edward. Your turn will come.’

      Halifax nodded diffidently in the manner of all Englishmen confronted by their own ambition.

      ‘Oh, Winston!’ Elizabeth uttered the name in exasperation, and without affection. ‘He will cause problems, you know he will. Always has.’

      ‘And already is,’ Halifax responded. ‘Wants Beaverbrook back.’

      ‘What?’ Elizabeth exclaimed. She neither liked nor trusted Max Beaverbrook, a Canadian émigré who had spent a long life charting a career through some exceptionally murky waters. He had been a Cabinet Minister during the last war, was now a peer and the immensely powerful owner of the Daily Express, and would for ever be an incorrigible conspirator. In his time he had schemed against both Churchill and the present Royal Family; it appeared that Churchill was far more ready to forgive him than was the Queen.

      ‘Wants to put him in charge of aircraft production,’ Halifax added for detail.

      ‘He must be stopped,’ Elizabeth insisted. ‘Beaverbrook is incapable of responsibility. Remember …’ She waved her hand in exasperation. There was so much to remember from Beaverbrook’s long career, not least his unflagging public support for her despicable brother-in-law, the abdicated Edward.

      The King, less voluble, was nevertheless shaking his head. ‘No, no, it won’t do. I must write to Winston immediately.’

      ‘Yes, hobble his horse,’ the Queen insisted.

      Halifax swallowed deep, calculating. Should he mention the other matter? But he was exhausted by the events of the last few days and no longer trusted his own judgement. Instead he allowed base instinct to rule and to stir the Prime Minister’s pot.

      ‘He also wants Bracken as a Privy Councillor.’

      ‘No!’ Elizabeth once more led the objections, more vehement than ever. ‘Bracken as part of the King’s own private council? That we cannot have.’ Membership of the Council was an exceptional honour reserved for the most senior in the land, not a jumped-up Irish adventurer. She hooked her arm through her husband’s and clasped him tightly, as if they both required an extra measure of support. ‘Those men around Mr Churchill,’ she exclaimed, ‘are not gentlemen.’

      ‘I fear the government is being given over to gangsters,’ Halifax muttered miserably. He knew that both the King and Queen believed it to be largely his fault.

      They wandered on in silence, skirting the lake, passing beyond rhododendrons that were raising flower-drenched branches in seasonal triumph, until Elizabeth turned to her husband, as always wishing to share his burden when he appeared distressed. ‘A penny for those thoughts of yours, my dear.’

      The King seemed startled for a moment, dragged back from distant troubles. ‘I was thinking, well … like you, how very much I had wanted Edward for the job. And then worrying – just a little – how can I put it? About us and the Germans. That our gangsters may not be as good as theirs.’

      It was beyond midnight when Churchill’s private detective, Inspector Thompson, ushered the woman into Churchill’s study. Churchill was busy writing a letter and didn’t look up. Without being asked, Thompson refilled his master’s glass, then offered a drink to the woman. With a curt shake of the head, she declined. Thompson left, closing the door behind him quietly.

      Only then did Churchill raise his eyes.

      ‘Didn’t know if you would come.’

      ‘Didn’t want to. But your private policeman waved his warrant card. You know we Germans are helpless in the face of authority.’

      Ruth Mueller was around fifty with a thin, elegant face that had worn well and fading blonde hair trimmed severely at the neck. She had probably cut it herself. There were other signs of self-reliance about her, apart from defiant eyes – her tweed suit was frayed at the cuffs and clearly designed for someone several pounds heavier, her shoes were old, her fingers unadorned by any jewellery. She held an ancient handbag protectively in her lap.

      ‘You look well,’ he offered clumsily.

      ‘No thanks to you.’ Her vocabulary was precise, her accent stiff.

      He cleared his throat in irritation. He could still remember his surprise at their first encounter. He had received a letter from an R. Mueller explaining that the writer was a refugee from Germany, had an academic background as an historian, and wondering whether Churchill might be in need of any researchers for his forthcoming writings. The letter had added in impassioned terms that the threat of events in Europe were so imminent and the lack of understanding about them so immense in everyone but Churchill that he was the only man in Europe the writer wished to work for.

      It had been a timely letter, arriving at Chartwell at the moment when Churchill, under severe pressure from both his publishers and his multiple creditors, had turned once more to his History of the English-Speaking Peoples, a book commissioned many years previously and repeatedly pushed aside for the distractions of politics. Yet as interested as Churchill was in politics, for the past decade politics had displayed precious little interest in him. He had been a political outcast, lost in the wilderness, out of office and largely ignored. So he had picked up his pen once more, believing that his History would in all likelihood be his last endeavour on this earth, and in a typically impetuous moment had written offering R. Mueller a position on his team of research assistants.

      He was shaken when, on the appointed day, a woman had turned up. Churchill was not good with women, not in a professional sense. For him they were creatures of romance, to be admired when the moment was right, then left in their drawing rooms while the menfolk got on with business. He’d had severe doubts about giving them the vote and was aggravated beyond endurance by most of those who had found their way into Parliament. When, with some awkwardness, he had sat R. Mueller down and suggested there had been some confusion but he might have a vacancy on his staff for an additional typist, she had not taken it well. She was a qualified historian, she told him, one who had spent several years researching an authoritative biography of the Fuehrer. Her abilities had been recognized even by the Gestapo. They had visited her several times and suggested several other professional avenues for her to pursue, ranging from a teaching position in almost any other subject than Hitler studies, which she had declined, to a librarianship in Dachau, which she had avoided only by fleeing. But even the Gestapo hadn’t suggested she be a typist. She had waved Churchill’s letter of appointment and insisted that she be given the proper job on his staff.

      The engagement had lasted three weeks. She was brilliant, incisive, immensely hard-working, and impossible. When she had discovered that he was spending most of his time working on a history of the English-speaking world, she had asked why he wasn’t writing about the contemporary threat in Europe. He had offered many reasons: he was under considerable contractual obligation to his publishers, he had told her, and people were fed up with him going on about impending war. Anyway, it was necessary for him to think about his financial survival. She had looked him in the eye and told him that survival was about much more than his silk underwear and champagne. It had been the last time they had spoken. Until tonight.

      ‘Many circumstances have changed