Prime Minister can see the outline of a church, and a notice that announces it to be St. Clement's. Oranges and lemons, said the bells of St. Clement's…And St. Martin's, the Old Bailey, Shoreditch, Stepney, Old Bow. The candle is here to light him to bed. And here comes the chopper to chop off his head—chip, chop, chip, chop—the last man's dead! In his tormented mind, Chamberlain has a vision. The heart of London has been ripped out by bombers, the church spires are burning like funeral pyres, and in their light he can see Winston Churchill, astride it all, holding the axe! Chip—chop—chip—chop. Oh, but this is no children's game, there is no need for him to run away. Chip—chop—chip. He thinks he can hear the methodical rhythm of the axe as it falls, but it is only the beating of the car engine. His body aches, his mind is swimming with fatigue and a small tear begins to trace an uncertain path down his cheek. He wonders vaguely why he is crying, but arrives at no clear answer. He doesn't make a habit ofcrying, can't remember the last time he did so. Oh, yes, it was as a young child, when he refused to get out of the bath and his father had punished him…
He dwells on memories of yesterday, perhaps because he dare not dwell on tomorrow. Sometimes, at that vanishing point as wakefulness dips into sleep, Chamberlain has a vision that London is burning after all and he has got the whole thing wrong. The crowds are no longer cheering and both God and the Queen have turned their backs. But it is only a dream. As they pass Queen Eleanor's memorial at Waltham Cross, finally he falls into a fitful sleep.
Late nights were spreading like a disease in Downing Street. They disrupted the process of calm thought and careful digestion. They were not to be encouraged.
“I'll follow you in a minute, my dear,” Chamberlain promised as his wife set foot on the stairs. They both knew she would be asleep in her own room long before he made it up to the second floor. There came a point where the body was too exhausted to relax, and he had long since passed that point. He would need a drink and to pace a little before he could think of retiring, perhaps refresh himself from a few of the thousands of letters and telegrams waiting for him.
As he wandered in search of distraction through the darkened corridors, he discovered a chink of light shining from beneath the door of the anteroom next to the Cabinet Room. The elfin grove. Muffled laughter. He was drawn to it like a moth.
The merriment ceased as Horace Wilson and Joseph Ball looked up in concern. “Everything in order, Neville?” Ball inquired. They were used to the tides of exhaustion that had swept across their master in recent weeks, but the face at the door was more lugubrious, the moustache more determinedly drooped, than ever.
“Things in order? Perhaps you should tell me. You two alwaysseem to know so much more about what's going on than do I.”
The Prime Minister sank into a chair and held out his hand. It was immediately filled with a glass of white wine. Tired eyes lifted in silent thanks. So often he found there was no need to use words with these elves, they had an uncanny ability to understand his needs—and particularly Wilson, whom he had inherited from the previous administration of Baldwin. At times it seemed to be the finest part of his inheritance. Softly spoken, pale eyes, fastidious by habit, understated but extraordinarily determined. From the start Wilson and the new Prime Minister had been natural colleagues, one the Government's Chief Industrial Adviser, the other a former Birmingham businessman, both seeing virtue in compromise and believing pragmatism to be a guiding principle. Politics were, after all, simply about business, a matter of making deals.
Ball was different. He was a man of fleshy indulgence, which showed beneath the waistcoats of his broad chalk-stripe suits. His fingers were thick, like sausages, and his face was round,
He dwells on memories of yesterday, perhaps because he dare not dwell on tomorrow. Sometimes, at that vanishing point as wakefulness dips into sleep, Chamberlain has a vision that London is burning after all and he has got the whole thing wrong. The crowds are no longer cheering and both God and the Queen have turned their backs. But it is only a dream. As they pass Queen Eleanor's memorial at Waltham Cross, finally he falls into a fitful sleep.
Late nights were spreading like a disease in Downing Street. They disrupted the process of calm thought and careful digestion. They were not to be encouraged.
“I'll follow you in a minute, my dear,” Chamberlain promised as his wife set foot on the stairs. They both knew she would be asleep in her own room long before he made it up to the second floor. There came a point where the body was too exhausted to relax, and he had long since passed that point. He would need a drink and to pace a little before he could think of retiring, perhaps refresh himself from a few of the thousands of letters and telegrams waiting for him.
As he wandered in search of distraction through the darkened corridors, he discovered a chink of light shining from beneath the door of the anteroom next to the Cabinet Room. The elfin grove. Muffled laughter. He was drawn to it like a moth.
The merriment ceased as Horace Wilson and Joseph Ball looked up in concern. “Everything in order, Neville?” Ball inquired. They were used to the tides of exhaustion that had swept across their master in recent weeks, but the face at the door was more lugubrious, the moustache more determinedly drooped, than ever.
“Things in order? Perhaps you should tell me. You two alwaysseem to know so much more about what's going on than do I.”
The Prime Minister sank into a chair and held out his hand. It was immediately filled with a glass of white wine. Tired eyes lifted in silent thanks. So often he found there was no need to use words with these elves, they had an uncanny ability to understand his needs—and particularly Wilson, whom he had inherited from the previous administration of Baldwin. At times it seemed to be the finest part of his inheritance. Softly spoken, pale eyes, fastidious by habit, understated but extraordinarily determined. From the start Wilson and the new Prime Minister had been natural colleagues, one the Government's Chief Industrial Adviser, the other a former Birmingham businessman, both seeing virtue in compromise and believing pragmatism to be a guiding principle. Politics were, after all, simply about business, a matter of making deals.
Ball was different. He was a man of fleshy indulgence, which showed beneath the waistcoats of his broad chalk-stripe suits. His fingers were thick, like sausages, and his face was round,
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