Assignment Churchill

92 G563th 55-01393

Thompson

/.ssignment: Churchill.

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ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

Assignment:

flCRCHDLL

by Inspector Walter Henry Thompson
of Scotland Yard

FARRAR, STRAUS AND YOUNG

NEW YORK

Copyright 1955 by Walter Henry Thompson

All rights reserved, including the right to repro-
duce this book or portions thereof in any form
"whatsoever

Library of Congress catalog card number 54-11972
First printing, 1955

Manufactured in the U.S.A. by American Book-Stratford Press

TMs book is dedicated to
The Right Honorable Sir Winston Churchill, K.G.; O.M.;

in recognition of his eightieth birthday
and in memory of my many proud years in his service

My grateful thanks to Max Wylie for his constant

and unwearying help and cooperation in the

production of this book

PART

MY NAME is Walter Henry Thompson. For most of my active life
I was a member of the Special Branch of Scotland Yard. For
nineteen and a half years of this period, my assignment day
and night was guarding the life of Winston Churchill. For two
years before this I was assigned to Lloyd George, Prime Minister
of England during and after World War I.

Lloyd George was the first English official to move into
Chequers, the country estate given to the Crown in 1920 by Lord
Lee of Fareham as a retreat for England's Prime Ministers.
Guarding Lloyd George was trying, but guarding Chequers was
more so. It is truly ancient, the first structure, still standing, having
been built by Rudolphus, clerk to the Exchequer (hence the
name) of Henry II. The grounds are enormous, the drive from
the main road to the manor being just under a mile. In those days
there were no outside lights of any kind, and between the wide
stretches of perfect lawn lay thickly wooded areas. Any part of
the grounds could easily be penetrated by troublemakers, and the
ancient house, which has not been seriously remodeled since 1580,
is ideally constructed for assassinations. A police officer, even with
Ms health and a revolver, could feel very alone there. And very
unsafe.

In January, 1920, on the night of which I am speaking, tMs
sense of uneasiness was intensified by the midwinter gloom of
Chequers. In the rain the building looked preternatural and ma-
lign. I lumbered about through the hedges, alert, putting my torch-
light briefly into this clump or that corner, but depending more
upon my ears and my intuition. The biggest threat to the life of

3

4 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

Lloyd George at that time was the Sinn Fein, the Irish terrorist
organization. In two years' time, the Sinn Feiners would murder
Sir" Henry Wilson, cMef of the British General Staff, on a busy
street in London in the bright of day. Scotland Yard had in-
formation on many plots to kill Lloyd George, and the Prime
Minister was quite naturally rarely out of our sight and never out
of our hearing. Laughter from inside the house came to me
through, the rain.

I was glad when my relief arrived. Frankly, I always was. I
could return to my little room in the village near Chequers, warm
up and dry my wet boots. This room was my off-duty retreat. I ate
and slept in it whenever the Prime Minister came down from
London.

There was a memorandum to caH the Yard, which I did im-
mediately. It was a change in my assignment. I was to guard the
life of Mr. Winston Churchill, a promising member of Mr.
George's Cabinet This new assignment was to alter my life and
change me as a person.

I thought of what a demanding man Mr. Churchill was known
to be by all the men in the Special Branch who had ever had this
detail. They never had any time off! Mr. Churchill's hours were
insane, his demands were reputed to be "casually tyrannical" if
such things can go together. I was tall, thirty years old, married
and, as Rudyard Kipling said of some other, "tough as telegraph
wire/* I was a stout boxer and was being offered money to play
football on a professional basis. At these pursuits I spent my
leisure. They kept me hard and kept my competitive spirit at a
peak, a recommended condition for a policeman. I am sixty-three
as I write these words, and regret none of the decisions taken nor
the orders given and I'm still tough, but when one has just been
through a long bitter war against the Kaiser and is just beginning
a new life, it is a most melancholy hour when he hears he must
now attach himself to an ambitious politician. It meant, I thought,
that I would spend my days listening to speeches and my nights
standing outside of doors, in drafty hallways where there is never
quite enough light to read the newspapers. This was Churchill to
me then. I did not know, of course, that on top of it aE this assign-
ment would one day bring me back to Chequers.

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 5

This assignment lasted eight and a half years. Then in 1931
and 1932 another period with him, mostly in the United States,
and a third assignment that took us through the whole of World
War II. With him I have seen fearsome events, and many that are
imperishable.

Members of the Special Branch of Scotland Yard are trained
to take in everything at once. Though I had never met Mr.
Churchill, I had many preconceptions about him, inevitable be-
cause so many of my colleagues had found him "the most difficult
man" and because so many had survived the detail "only a matter
of days."

When I first met him, he was pacing about his study in his home
in Sussex Square in London. I am sure he was already a world-
famous man on this spring day in 1921, and he may also have
been a great man by that time. Ten years before that he had been
First Lord of the Admiralty. And at that moment he had two
portfolios. One is enough. But not enough for Churchill. He was
Secretary of State for Air, and Secretary of State for the Colonies.
It was in this, double capacity that we would be departing in a few
days for Egypt. Scotland Yard never tells you where you are
going, but you always know what you have to do.

As Mr. Churchill moved rapidly about his large study, not
looking up nor knowing his privacy was about to be broken, he
seemed almost ludicrously preoccupied. His concentration was so
frenzied as to approach the burlesque.

"This is Sergeant Thompson," his secretary said quietly. Mr.
Churchill stopped walking and looked over.

"You wanted to see me?" he asked.

I did not want to see him at all. I merely recited the orders
from Scotland Yard that I had been sent to guard his life. He
asked me how I planned to do that I told him. Though I of course
had no idea of the projected trip to Egypt and Jerusalem, I men-
tioned the possible security hazards that seemed at that time to
be developing for men in public life. Benito Mj^soljm was soon
to march on Rome, and cheap imitations of his bravado, even
in England, were springing up in unexpected places and assert-
ing themselves. Sir Oswald Mosley, later to be known as "the
Woolworth Duce," was drawing a column of sleek delinquents

6 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

to follow him to objectives more noisy than clear. There were
other dangers and disgraces, communism among them.

Winston Churchill had pulled himself at once from his deep
thought. He listened to me as if it were the most important
matter then before the Crown. He had the great gift of imme-
diacy. And he had the greater one of dispatch.

"Thank you, Thompson. I've no doubt that we'll get on well
together/* We did, too, though often through the exercise of
restraint. 4

Mr. Churchill was not much taller than the Prime Minister
whom I had just left. Both men were quick of mind and both
were always hurrying. Lloyd George seemed to scamper, while
Mr. Churchill was more of a lunger and charger. In the months
to come, I was able to make comparisons between these two men
and come to my own evaluation of what their real strengths were.

Lloyd George's quickness of mind was sometimes his own trap.
He would listen to anybody and too often immediately believe
him. But Mr. Churchill always, and at once, knew when he was
in the presence of an expert. Lloyd George would seek and take
suggestions from any man at hand. He was the prettiest talker
who ever lived but he also liked pretty talk. To use a common
expression, he could be "kidded," for he had the great flaw that
is shared by all the great salesmen in the world: they are them-
selves gullible.

The few times Churchill was taken in, he was caught in errors
of Ms own, never in a misjudgment of the skills of others. He was
such an expert at so many different areas of thought that his
own belief, gathered through the years, that he was close to in-
fallible seems about justified in the light of what we know today.
But his mind was the active and experimenting sort, so Churchill
had to find out what he couldn't do by getting smashed up himself.

There is a most literal side to this. He had always been a great
lover of flight, for example. To be a pilot himself at an early age
was one of his near obsessions, but lacking instinct for the pe-
culiar demands of flying and temperament for the quality of cool-
ness it r e<piiies, and most of all lacking the multiple coordinations
it demands he was unfit ever to take off and land. Nothing but

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 7

severe wreckage ever proved this to him that and an injury to
a close friend.

Winston Churchill's basic thinking was for all time. Even in
those days when 1 first met him (he was forty-six when I became
Ms bodyguard), there was an enduring and an almost imperial
substance to his speech, as if what he said and thought of the wars
and struggles that were so much a part of Ms own life, could have
applied with equal sense to many of the prolonged and compli-
cated conflicts that had shaken the Western World in the past.

Churchill always saw the main thing. Lloyd George too often
saw only the immediate thing.

Lloyd George would not know for sure today what he had said
yesterday. But so extraordinary was Ms charm and so unbelievable
his oratorical nimbleness that no contradiction, no misstatement
of known fact, ever seemed to embarrass him. He had all the self-
confidence and the engaging recklessness of the true Celt, and
was incredibly fast to recoil. But there was no recoil in Churchill.
If things didn't give, he took the blow and pushed on in for an-
other. Today he is a very battered old battlewagon, with scars and
fractures from Sassoon Dock in India to Omdurman in the Sudan.

Egypt seemed a poor health risk, and I felt little attachment to
the journey.

However, and quite contrary to the ponderousness with which
the British government arrives at mighty decisions, I soon found
myself rocking back and forth in the roughest railroad I know
of the Paris-Lyons-Marseilles bound for Marseilles, then by
liner for Alexandria. On this railroad it is impossible to talk, eat,
sleep, shave, stand, sit, or think. One must somehow survive in-
explicable discomfort to the journey's end, then forget it all
quickly.

On board the train was $JRL OmrchilL Nothing seemed ever
to disturb or to dishearten Itr* bet I doubt if she felt any more
pleasure at the prospect of thft Eastern Meditoanean tfaaa I did,
Her husband was having a gdotf t$rae. The mission was awkward.
The danger was real. The woje at a near peak of unpopu-

larity with the Egyptians at ttjiB Hap*

8 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

Chief of this mission was Lord Trenchard. His nickname was
"Boom." As a traveling companion he was a column of ice, even
less communicative than ice, for literally nothing ever melted from
him. I have never known a man less able to reach people nor one
so inaccessible. He was a good match for the Sphinx.

I do not know whether we accomplished our mission in Egypt
or not (there would be no finding it out from "Boom" Trenchard),
but the first objective had to do with aviation. Mr. Churchill, as
Secretary for Air, was to determine whether an increase in the
scanty air installations of Egypt would relieve some of the pres-
sures of duty and of occupation from the garrisoned Tommies
there. They had a dreary life indeed, and if Egypt and the Sudan
and the Suez Canal area could all be satisfactorily policed and
supervised by an improved air patroling system, it would represent
quite a material advance. And save money too.

Mr. Churchill had, as his own parliamentary secretary, Sir
Archibald Sinclair. And as his guide, interpreter and general diag-
nostician for the involved condition of the whole Middle East he
had the semi-legendary Lawrence of Arabia,

Lawrence was an untidy little chap, very slight indeed, awkward,
aloof, meditative. He weighed but eight stone. He was probably
the most important member of our group, for three good reasons:
he understood every detail of an unbelievably tangled situation,
he spoke Arabic, and he was deeply loved, even actively wor-
shipped, by the Arab world. This "kingship" was not anything
that he at any time visibly enjoyed, but it was of much use to our
mission many times before our return.

Lawrence had been of great help to the Allied cause during
World War I, supported in large part by promises he was em-
powered to make to assure the continued allegiance of desert
groups and in preventing their joining the Kaiser's forces. Lawrence
told me that the Germans had so little expected to be defeated
that they had built a castle outside Jerusalem to be used by the
Kaiser at war's end for Ms residence when visiting his Eastern
Empire. On the Mount of Olives was a stone seat that had been
carved for the Kaiser. It was called the "Chair of Imperial Con-
templation" I made a point of sitting in this seat by the hour, when
we later on sot to Jerusalem* and wMIe sitting in it I would won-

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 9

der how the woodpile was accumulating at Doom. I was quite
conscientious about this and squared some old accounts for out-
rages beyond measure.

Lawrence told me that Churchill's life would be in danger from
the instant we were on African soil. He said we would get excel-
lent help from the Egyptian police but that the Arab masses were
dangerous and inflammable. I was instructed never to use my re-
volver except in greatest emergency but was informed that a show
of force by fists was highly respected (if such a display were called
for), and that I might make friends for Churchill by beating off
such attackers as got near him whereas I would make enemies by
firing.

I had not known about this but it worked when needed.

The now-deposed Egyptian King Farouk, whom we have all heard
so much about, was a baby of only one year at this time, and his
father was Sultan. He did not take the title of king until the year
following. His name was Ahmed Fuad, the brother of the previous
Sultan Kamil. Fuad served his people until his death in 1936.
Contrary to most opinion, Farouk was at first not only competent
but popular; but soon destroyed himself in eating and wenching.

The hatred extended toward the British was to some extent
perhaps justified in the eyes of those Egyptians who did not en-
tirely understand their own situation or appreciate the protections
that limited British influence afforded them. The Egyptians were
under the impression that Churchill's visit was to interfere with
their internal affairs while our whole purpose (in Egypt at least,
though not in Palestine) was to release ground troops. The Egyp-
tians were also disaffected because we had seen fit to deport
ZaghM Pasha to Malta while the Paris Peace Conference had
been in progress. The Nationalist Party, called the Wafd, of which
Zaghlul Pasha was a headstrong and popular leader, was grow-
ing at the time. The necessary methods of British policy, forced
labor and requisition of materials, were most bitterly resented.
Zaghlul Pasha demanded independence. It was too early for that.
General Allenby had had to put down several insurrections, most
of them bloody.

As the docks of Alexandria and the heat of the mainland began
to near us, some of Mr. Churchill's visible excitement about land-

10 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

ing was augmented in a healthy way by the true and practical
possibilities of airplanes in this region. The age of flight was here,
though new. The first flight from Cairo to the Cape had been
made only the year before, and Mr. Churchill could trace the
route with his finger. Another hazardous over-the-desert flight had
been successfully completed from Algiers to Gao (on the Niger),
then on to Dakar. A motorized expedition I believe the Courtot
had just crossed the Sahara to Lake Chad, and the Haardt ex-
pedition that was to cross and recross the Sahara with caterpillar
motors was then forming. This of course was of great interest to
Mr. Churchill (almost anything was, if it looked as if it could be
put to work) because it was he who had insisted on the practi-
cality of caterpillar traction years before the war, for safely cross-
ing over an enemy trench or for crushing it in the instinct that
led to the first British tank. Here it was conquering heat and sand
and traversing the unmapped horror of the Sahara.

Heat and a swarm of flies hit us as we tied up at the dockside
at Alexandria. A large and sullen crowd of Egyptians gathered
when we stepped ashore, but there was no demonstration. I stayed
directly behind and slightly to one side of Mr. Churchill. Mrs.
Churchill and her maid were to my right. Our party stepped into
cars chauffeured by British sergeants. Egyptian police, with staves,
held the crowd back. There was some shouting and what would
amount to boos in our own country. It was not unsettling but these
were harsh faces.

"Never let Mr. Churchill out of your sight while in Egypt." I
was at this moment seated beside the driver of the car that was
to take our party to a hotel. Mr. and Mrs. Churchill sat behind,
with Sir Archibald between them. We looked English and un-
comfortably hatted, Mrs. Churchill in a gray cloche with black
ribbon, very fashionable at the time. The man warning me was
standing in the road at my side. He was Russell Pasha, probably
the world's most famous detective at that time. Dope smugglers
were his most frequent victims. He was as trusted by the Egyptian
police and reigning family as Lawrence was trusted in the desert.

We were assigned our proper space in the hotel. I was in charge
of the "official papers" which we English, for some reason, prefer
to keep in boxes. These I placed in a room adjoining Mr. Church-

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 11

ill's, locked the room, checked the hotel, then talked to the police
regarding routes of movement and times for our arrivals and de-
partures.

While her hushand ate his dinner, Mrs. Churchill took a brief
rest. She heard someone moving about in the locked room where
the boxes were and, rushing into the hall, called me, I smashed
the door in and drew my gun. The boxes had been disturbed but
were unopened and an Arab disappeared through a window at the
ceiling level as I came crashing over the threshold. There was not
time to shoot him. He was gone.

Mr. Churchill, who had been summoned by the commotion and
the odd howling in the corridors, came up unperturbed and I think
a bit disappointed that he had missed the show. He hated to miss
anything. He asked about the boxes. When I showed him that the
seals were unbroken, he ordered extra protection about the place,
and asked me if I minded spending the night with the boxes.

I of course agreed and ordered a cot to be put in the place. I
shut and bolted the window through which the Arab had flown,
drew my revolver, and waited through the suffocating hours for
the dawn to break. Except for the temperature it was like many
another nigjit

The day was welcome. We were to take Fuad's train to Cairo.
I had had no experience with the Egyptian police, of course, ex-
cept for the swift impressions I had gathered upon meeting Russell
Pasha in the street, and this impression had been a good one. He
was Engjish and knew Egypt better than any other man. How-
ever, as an Officer of Scotland Yard, I also had some notions of
my own and a bit of training behind me as well.

I did not like the temper of the crowd that had been at the
docks the day before* But I had noticed, also, a fantastic love
of color and an even greats love of what one might call "show of
authority."

Sir Archibald Sinclair had told me to cooperate as best I could
with the police. I informed the Cairo police who had come over
to be with us in Alexandria that our party would leave the hotel
promptly at ten o'clock and that the Sultan's train would leave
exactly at ten-thirty; that the road from the hotel to the station
should be manned by uniformed Egyptian police.

12 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

Today I do not know at all who was in the motorcade that went
down the main boulevards of Alexandria, but our party went in
shabby little cars and dirty back roads, boarding the train from
its "off" side.

We got aboard quickly, always wise. The train was well-ap-
pointed but a bit garish. All the carriages, as well as the locomo-
tive, were painted pure white. There was bunting around the
boiler door and flags spraying out from the cowcatcher steps.

There was a shrill tootling on the whistle and we pulled slowly
away, but we were going through neighborhoods so congested that
our failure to pick up any speed at all continued to keep me ap-
prehensive. I felt somewhat better when my own party was seated
in the commodious compartment (fit for a Sultan indeed, and half
a harem). Mr. Churchill busied himself with one of the boxes, the
whole bothersome cluster of which I had myself wrestled aboard,
and then sat down at a carved secretary and began to read and
to perspire. This seemed somehow the proper thing for a cabinet
member to being doing in an equatorial country. Mrs. Churchill,
always cool and composed and of course one of the best-dressed
women of her day, snapped on a fan and commenced reading as
if she were home in London. I had the curious feeling in that
instant (and a prick of possible disloyalty) that this present pic-
ture of Mr. and Mrs. Churchill was not so much an example of
their unusual capacity to adapt themselves as an inabUity ever to
realize they were in foreign places. Whatever it was, it seemed
very British of them and I liked it. I certainly never felt at home
in Egypt.

It was well I didn't. I kept watching T. E. Lawrence out of the
tail of my eye and he in turn kept looking out of the corridor
windows. We were approaching a grade crossing. I remained
standing in the compartment doorway and was not going to move
to my own space till the train had picked up enough speed so she
could not then be boarded or effectively stoned or fired upon.

There was the sudden sound of splintering glass. Two windows
had been smashed, one ahead of the Churchills' compartment and
one behind. Fortunately the stoning came from the other side and
though my charges migjit be struck by flying glass, they could not
be directly hit Our speed was an exasperation to me, for we were

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 13

hardly dog-trotting. Lawrence, with a quiet wave of the hand,
cautioned me to hold my position. He went to the end of the car.
A huge mass of ugly-looking Egyptians, some fighting for a hold
on the outside window ledges, was choking this stretch of the
crossing. Stones began to rain up against the sides of all the
cars and window after window tumbled inside the corridors and
spilt glass over the mulberry carpeting.

Mrs. Churchill had stopped reading. She seemed more annoyed
than interested. Churchill laid aside his pencil and turned to Sir
Archibald. "Better relieve Thompson of his packages, Archie.
He may be more useful to us if he's unencumbered."

We all exchanged grins. Thinking we might have been boarded
by a couple of Arab skulkers, I drew my revolver and kept it just
beneath my jacket. My feet were apart to catch the sway of the
train. My elbows were in contact with each side of the compart-
ment doorjamb, I would have been very hard to pass. We began
to gather a bit of speed. Lawrence came back. He never spoke
much to me.

"We'll be all right. There's nothing left to smash.' 5 He went in
with the others. Porters in red uniforms and gold sashes began to
sweep up the mess and toss the debris out the empty frames.
Churchill looked up boyishly at me and smiled, then turned back
to the austere basilisk who was Trenchard and together they again
began to scowl over the Empire's problems.

From my previous night in that lonely flea-ridden "Black Hole"
of Alexandria to the dull prospects of the climate we had entered,
I began to feel that Egypt could improve herself materially if she
could find another location. The British, in all their imperial wis-
dom, have somehow arranged to place most of their imperial
problems in some of our very worst geography. From the moving
train the landscape appeared to be cracked open by too much
sun. It glistened with vitreous reflections as if this whole sandy
waste that is North Africa were trying to cool. The countryside
shook and shimmered in the heat Buildings stood in the air above
their foundations. Mirages were soon so common they grew tire-
some. Spires and minarets could be seen upside-down twenty de-
grees off the horizon. FeUahin stood like shrouded scarecrows.
The falsetto keening of the train whistle was appropriate to my

14 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

notion of all these dead stretches of desolation. It all had a
scorched lunar look.

I realized I was cross because I was hungry. In order to improve
the security of the ride from the hotel to the train, I had been up
and at it since sunup and I had missed dinner the night before be-
cause of that prowling Egyptian.

Quite suddenly the topography changed, the temperature cooled,
and a spicy smell of food ran through the cars. We had left the
dead mask of the coast and moved into the delta country. Natives
working the fields looked more alive than their brothers a few
miles before. And the train could really go.

These satisfactions came and went quickly. We had been clip-
ping along at seventy for but a few minutes, it seemed, when we
slowed again. A very correct English colonel with monocle came
aboard at a nameless spot in the tracks, showed his pass, and went
in to the compartment. The white train panted in the sun. An
English-speaking Egyptian conductor passed and told me we were
jive miles out of Cairo. Apparently Englishmen were no more
popular in Cairo than they had been the day before in Alexandria.
By prearrangement (not known to us) we were all of us taken off
the Sultan's train at this point and driven by cars to the Semkamis
Hotel.

There was some sort of demonstration in progress already
there is always some sort of demonstration wherever Churchill
goes, I find but we drove without ceremony to a flowered arch
at the side of the hotel and went on in without any more special
attention from the "welcoming committee" in front. No stones
were thrown but no one rushed forth with a bouquet for Mrs.
Churchill either,

Here, while the now familiar annoyance of resettling was taking
place, Russell Pasha again cautioned me about the extreme danger
that Mr. Churchill would be in for the fuE duration of his stay. I
made an effort to find out what kind of attack it might be and
what kind of circumstance or gathering might provoke such at-
tack. Would it be a knife in the dark at night while he slept? Or
a shot from the crowd? Poison? Or something ingeniously oriental
that Sax Rohmer might invent? Russell Pasha told me I must stay
so close to Churchill for the whole of this visit as literally to be

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 15

right outside Ms private bath, while the Secretary for Air was in
the tub, and I realized it was a situation somewhat new to me. And
at some shock for what it would call for from my half-filled reser-
voirs of diplomacy, I realized the situation was a bit new also to
Mrs. Churchill.

I am sure the whole nuisance of my being so perpetually about,
of being so ubiquitous, was most distressing to her own idea of
order and of privacy. My shadow indeed must have been far more
trying and importunate than protective, at least to her. Poor
woman, she never made any sign or gesture. She did, however,
have an icy way she could look at a man when things went to the
snapping point of endurance, and on these occasions I always
wished I could disappear till she could recover.

I shan't burden the reader with the tired reminder about the
policeman's life, beyond saying that there is an indestructible,
almost a glacial, truth about it. There is a necessity of being in-
dispensable but not quite welcome; of being forever present and
as forever invisible; of being always out of conversations but never
out of earshot; of being responsible for new details that no exer-
cise of foresight and no meticulous attention to pre-planning could
predict.

The demonstration was continuing outside our windows; there
was a rhythm to it now, which I grew to know meant students and
anti-British slogans. There was a power failure and the overhead
fans stopped. Flies covered me like soot. Hawkers were selling
sugarcane in aggravating singsong. Buzzards and vultures stood
stationary in the sky three thousand feet above, waiting for ani-
mals to die. Donkeys passed, and overloaded carts pulled by huge
woeful oxen. Didn't these demonstrators know that His Majesty's
ministers were about to be received by their own Sultan? Why
didn't they disperse?

An Air Force sergeant poked his head in my door and asked
where Mr. Churchill was. I said he was next door. He was waiting
for General Allenby, I said, to give us instructions about getting
to the palace. The sergeant shook me into a renewed horror of
this particular day by saying Mr. Churchill was not even in the
hotel.

I sprinted down the marble halls to see a clerk whom I had

16 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

instructed to tell me of Mr. Churchill's emergence from his own
suite. He had forgotten to. I asked Russell Pasha to reprimand
the fellow, and rushed into the street looking for Winston.

I quickly deduced that Mr. Churchill had got tired of waiting
for the General and that he had gone out to find him. And this
was exactly right. He was smoking amiably, enjoying the look of
new buildings.

Mr. Churchill and I had a swift conversation about this; about
his own responsibilities not so much to me as to any security
officer assigned 'to him. It was not to be the only time that our
voices rose, even on public sidewalks, and the best way to leave
this unhappy exchange is to say that it was quite brief and thor-
oughly unacademic.

He promised never to do such a thing again when he appre-
ciated what he had done and the unnecessary peril into which he
had so happily hurried. When he saw my alarm and fury, he saw
too that there was nothing jaunty about his little walk. Did he
keep his promise? If I had known that day that I had to go
through the Blitz with him, I would have gone back to England.

A few hours later Winston Churchill and Lord AUenby, with a
gorgeous satrap whose name and rank I can't now recall, drove
to the spacious grounds of Egypt's ruler, with myself and the ser-
geant in a RAF car right behind. The palace guards, in two huge
ribbons of color, stood at attention while the first car came
through the gates. There was an immense mob all about, and all
shouting. We slowed to show our passes but the gates swung shut
just as the mob closed in. I was separated from Churchill.

The palace guards jumped in behind the protection of their own
railings and we could not persuade them to let us through. To this
day I feel they were afraid of their own people in this aroused
condition. All I could think of, and quite disconsolately in that
moment, was that while Mr. Churchill was safe inside (I had to
presume he was safe), Russell Pasha had warned me not to use
firearms except under the severest necessity. But Russell Pasha
was not anywhere about to give me the benefit of his views and
the mob was now upon us physically, shaking the car's doors,
beating on the tonneau with sticks. Our headlights were smashed
in. I tried to feel some safety in the presence of this sergeant from

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 17

the Air Force and indeed could find no fear in his expression. He
told me later he had no feeling of fear since the long arm of
Scotland Yard had reached clear into Egypt to save him! I rose
in the seat with my coat deliberately open. At least I would let
them see I had a revolver. I waved with a show of some urgency
to the palace guards. They waved back. It must have been very
interesting for them. It must have made the day pleasant.

A rock split our windshield.

"I propose we try to deal with this right now," I shouted.

"I'll do anything you suggest, Thompson," the sergeant said.

I pushed an Egyptian's face away from my own, flung the car
door open with force, and flung myself into those directly before
me, knocking down two men with two quick blows. The sergeant
seemed to feel I could handle this job all by myself. He was most
approving of my activity and had even folded his arms.

"Get out on your side!" I shouted. Stones and bricks poured
into our car. The sergeant jumped from behind the steering wheel
and engaged those on his side as I was flailing and punching on
my own. A wooden staff came down on my head. I kept punching
at everyone available. Four or five men were lying down beside
the car by this time. A huge fellow, rather fat, tugged at my coat
with much force, pulling my head over. I drove my fist into his
belly and how he howled! As he backed off, I split his nose. The
sergeant picked up a wrench and brought it down four or five
times. This was a great help. There were cheers and screams.

It was a strange fight. There was laughter and grinning in the
fringes but where we were, the whole affair was being attended to
with more energy than I had thus far seen in Egypt I kept hoping
to make enough of a clearing to get my coat off and I coveted the
sergeant's wrench. We had an unusually busy five or six minutes
of this, and though I could see some progress and felt no fatigue
as yet, I could not see any end to it. I kept hoping the palace
guards would feel some responsibility toward us here at their very
gates but they obviously felt it was far too good a show to inter-
rupt

The sound of police whistles was by this time welcome. A few
of the rioters were packed off, but not by the palace guards. It was
the Cairo police, a finely trained and versatile organization, as I

18 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

learned later through Russell Pasha. The palace guards merely
watched proceedings.

Churchill came back soon, pink and cheerful.

There were several days of conferences, then a few for sight-
seeing. One day we went out to the Pyramids. Sir Archibald and
I climbed to the top of the largest of these (a most strenuous exer-
cise because of the awkward height of the blocks, about 4i4 feet).
I refused hot tea, offered by some Arab boys, at the summit but
Sir Archibald drank thirstily and next day came down with ty-
phoid fever. This disrupted the schedule a bit and robbed Mr.
Churchill of a valuable secretary and a most merry companion.

Lieutenant Colonel Buxton, head of the famous Imperial Camel
Corps, was to take us out to the ruins and excavations at Sakkara
(Churchill always had to do these things, immediately he heard
of them) , a two-and-a-half-hour ride directly across the desert as
the camel takes you. Buxton was away at this time and Lawrence,
a great rider, was anxious to bring off the trip.

I do not at all care for camels. They may be picturesque at a
distance but I have never seen them at a distance sufficient to
bring out this pleasing characteristic. They smell. They are refrac-
tory and disdainful. They are misanthropic, egocentric, and not
built for transport. They are built to last a long time by them-
selves, which is the best I can say for them. Their bite is dangerous
as their saliva carries all manner of germs and bacteria, even the
spkochete of syphilis. They are in a constant rumble of displeasure,
making an oddly oriental gargling sound never heard in the West-
am world, even in a zoo. They look over you, never at you. They
seem patient enough when crouched for loading, but rise by their
hind legs first, invariably pitching first-riders over their heads into
the sand, a moment always relished by the horse-mounted sheiks
in the same way as our recent skirmish with the mob in front of
the palace was relished by Fuad's guards.

I knew that I would look altogether ridiculous on a camel and
I feel the camel knew this too. But I do not believe I looked any
worse than Winston Churchill. No matter where we might be, he
could always manage to balloon himself with the most surprising
outer garments.

A grisly Arabian Nights sergeant who looked like a retired

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 19

assassin brought forth two mounts that T. E. Lawrence had picked
out. Mine was an immense and bony animal supplied with a pur-
ple shawl and a wooden carousel saddle. Mr. Churchill's mount
was the same except that his had a few visible muscles and not
quite the true pyramid look of antiquity which mine bore.

On a camel there is nothing to grab but the sky. And there is
no discernible steering apparatus. You just go whither the other
camels go. It is this fraternity feeling alone that delivers new
riders to given objectives.

There is a light cord that runs from the saddle to the camel's
right nostril but it might as well have been a bellpull in a dead
castle for all the tugging I gave it and the good I got out of it
Once the camel looked back directly at me and looked so meanly
I felt for my gun by reflex and stopped tugging. There was nothing
to do but suffer through to the end.

I realized suddenly that Churchill, who was on my right flank
at this moment, was precariously close to being on his own right
flank in the next stride or two, for he had billowed off to one
side of the saddle and was searching miserably about for some-
thing to grab hold of. As I already knew from my own circum-
stance there was not anything a man could do for himself. I
watched fascinated. So did a hundred sheiks on horseback. The
inevitable moment of separation came, and the Secretary for Air
and for Colonies went through the air and landed in the middle
of one of his colonies in a fine spray of white sand and wheeling
horses. He rolled over and looked around for his hat. Arab sheiks
dismounted quickly and offered their steeds, but Winston who
had been fourth in rank among the cavalry candidates at Sand-
hurst had come to ride on a camel and he got back on and we
somehow got out to Sakkara.

Luncheon was spread out there for us but an hour after dis-
mounting I was still shaking so I could not properly hold a sand-
wich. Winston wiggled a bit too, as if secretively testing his spine
for alignment or Ms ribs for cracks. The thought of the ride back
was depressing.

It was here at Sakkara, with the strange sight and stranger
sound of the native diggers chanting in rhythm as they shoveled,
that I heard from the junior officers and from some of the English-

20 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

speaking camel wallahs, of the incredible claims (now the subject
of increasing challenge and dispute) of treks that Lawrence "was
known to have taken" on camelback. Sir Edward Winterton, a
former M.P. who served in Arabia in World War I, has stated:
"Churchill told me in the 20's Lawrence would have made a
good Secretary of Defense." Churchill was surely fascinated by
Lawrence and saw much of him before our return to England,
but I doubt if at that moment even Churchill could have sum-
moned enough objectivity to worry about improving the Cabinet.

We got back on the camels somewhat after the lunch period.
T. E. Lawrence had introduced Winston to a trick of some sort
(maybe he had said something to the camel). In any event,
Churchill's seat was improved noticeably. Mine was still what it
had been before. Because I truly dreaded our return, I tried to get
the secret but when the gaits of our three beasts matched each
other enough for me to call to Lawrence, my own animal seemed
to realize we were on our way back and decided quite suddenly
to gallop all the way home. Lawrence seemed to know what was
in the animal's mind for he turned his thumb toward me and said
something to Winston just as my long runaway began.

"Go it, Thompson!" shouted Winston Churchill. No urging was
necessary. We flew over the sands. I knew, if I could just stay on,
I would far outdistance everyone else in the desert. This would
at least give me some moments to compose myself before resum-
ing the more formal and sensible duties of guarding Mr. Churchill.

Miraculously both he and Lawrence were already seated in the
rear of the car, smoking and chatting, when I arrived. To this day
I truly do not know how they beat me. They let me get down
without saying anything. I eased myself over to the car. It was
like moving a fracture case without benefit of splints, stretcher,
or sedation.

It would have been an ideal time for a try on the Secretary's
life, for I was nearly blind with sunglare and I felt in every bone
as if a stampede had passed over me. Churchill chuckled richly.
I didn't want to hear any comment from either him or Lawrence.
I felt a tap on my shoulder and Winston's voice at my ear, high
and ragging:

"That was a great show of energy, Thompson! I've never known

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 21

a man to get so much out of a camel. You should enter him In
the Grand National!"

My upright position for the ride from the edge of the desert
back to the cool of the Semiramis was due to no sense of impor-
tance. I merely felt calcified. But Winston had had as rough a time
too, and the spirit of fun in the leg-pulling seemed to infect the
party even got through to the Egyptian officials and was talked
about and speculated upon, especially the Air Minister's "flight
to earth," for days after.

Early the next morning, and not on schedule, an interesting, and
as I soon grew to know, a characteristic, side of Mr. Churchill re-
vealed itself: a strong and controlling power in him.

If dispatch is the central force and secret of this man's success
as an administrator as I believe, his compassion is the sign of his
main purposes. Churchill is a practicing Christian. It is probably
odd to many readers to find the word "Christian" fastened to a
man of action and of war. But I noticed this quality again and
again. It came from two deeper feelings: a love of simple people
and a savage hatred of unfairness of any sort.

It revealed itself one day when we drove with some hurry to
the RAF installations outside the city of Cairo. There was some-
thing there, or something going on there, that Winston was deter-
mined to know about and that, from what I could sense and
gather, the RAF was as determined to keep from him. It turned
out to be quite a simple thing indeed, but very basic: the un-
satisfactory condition of the quarters that were assigned to those
NCO's who were married. These quarters were abominable; it is
no wonder the commanding officers were anxious to hide this
shabby side of an otherwise effective service.

"I'd now like to be driven over to the married quarters," Mr.
Churchill would say. And there would be a fussy procrastination,
such as another inspection of a hangar the duplicate of which we
had just seen, or a diversionary skirmish into the canteen, or into
the map room. But they could not shake the Secretary's will to
see what he had come for and see it in every detail, creditable
and discreditable.

He waved officers away from himself, and drew noncoms (and
their wives too. standing about in polite and inquiring forlorn-

22 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

ness, struggling to be cheerful and honorably responsive) about
him and into conversation with him, until the whole complaint
was in his mind. He went through many of the units himself. His
eyes were cameras and the conscience of his mind was their film
strip. He saw the full distress of these poor people, recorded it,
and before we were ourselves out of the field's area, his urgent
memorandum for improvement here was on the cables and tap-
ping out its message to the calm authorities in Whitehall.

The officers who had tried to sidetrack him were dismissed with
a monumental disinterest and a handshake almost reflexive in
its brevity.

It was in this blunt little exchange in the noonday sun that I
realized I would serve this man with all I had, in any danger, and
for as many years as his positions might require the protection of
the Yard. Was there ever one like him for seeing so much?

Indeed, was there ever one like him?

We drove in silence back to the Semiramis Hotel, Winston now
writing in a notebook or glancing into the sky at stunting ma-
neuvers of the RAF. Anything in the air thrilled him.

Arriving in the hotel lobby there was a message from Sir Her-
bert Samuel, High Commissioner of Palestine, Churchill offered
me the afternoon off, then immediately canceled it and decided to
take a staff car to the Pyramids again to paint them.

I was most greatly annoyed at the unconscious use to which he
could put anyone to do things for him that had not the least sug-
gestion of belonging to his proper office. He would use anyone
who would permit it. It is true that I had carried his paintboxes
to the dockside while we waited for our ship at Marseilles and
stood by holding off inquisitive snoopers at the wharf till the sea-
scape was finished. I had at the time thought it to be a capricious
enthusiasm that would not repeat itself as it was hard to associate
the art of painting with the man's other activities.

I very soon learned that painting was no mere enthusiasm. It
was a disease, and before any time at all had passed I had become
worn out at the thought of the menial lugging of his damn boxes.
It has given me a quite warped notion of this whole side of civil-
ized living to the extent that I would never think of going into
a museum no matter what was hanging there.

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 23

So he painted and smoked by the hour, while clusters of tour-
ists, dilapidated sheiks and buggy little boys hung about, taking
snapshots or giggling.

A group of British Tommies came along, off duty and carefree.
With his back turned to them, Churchill could have been nearly
anything in the world instead of what he really was. Now, under
a green umbrella, he looked like an upholstered toad slowly in-
cinerating itself.

Very loud stage whispers of advice came from the Tommies.
They thought the man might be better doing the outside of blimp
hangars. They wondered if instead of painting the Pyramids, the
man might do better to repair them.

At this sally, Churchill turned and grinned broadly.

"Gawd! It's Winston!" The young soldiers sucked in their
breath and wished themselves far away, but he called them over,
showed them his effort at close range, criticized what he thought
was still missing in the effort, set about trying to put it in, and
all the time chatted back and forth, getting an amazing amount
of spontaneous comment from every one of them. They were being
thoroughly "sweated" for impromptu offerings of many sorts,
without ever knowing that the magic of the Churchill process of
kindly solicitation was also giving the Secretary for Air and for
Colonies a true look into the morale of the effectives in the field,
and grounds for a guess at their competence. He took many of his
best notes from people who never knew they gave them.

"Tiffin" was an agreeable experience. In the Semiramis, I looked
forward to these hours, or half-hours, for I could observe my
charge under the most ideal conditions, keeping him not only
under surveillance but within earshot, and yet keeping out of
sight. I could also have my own tea in peace. There were many
tubs of palms and flowering plants from the botanical gardens.

I was having my second cup of tea one day when Russell Pasha
walked through the lobby, then strode into the enclosed terrace
where Mr. Churchill and his party were talking. Lawrence was in
full Arab dress. Russell made a sign of some sort to Lawrence who
in turn looked over to the semicircle of ferns behind which I was

24 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

nearly invisible. Pasha nodded a greeting to Boom Trenchard,
who looked puzzled as always when people were polite to him,
bowed slightly to the rest, and came over to my little table.

Russell Pasha told me that Sir Herbert Samuel had sent spe-
cial police with him from the Holy Land because of knowledge
picked up outside Jerusalem that Churchill's life was going to be
attempted sometime during the train trip from Cairo. It was not
known whether the attempt would be by bomb or by shooting.
My duty would be more than ever strenuous because I was as-
signed responsibility for the security of the train, not just the offi-
cial carriage. All the other police that could be made available
were detailed to various stations and sensitive spots along the
right-of-way. Sensitive spots are locations where trains take water,
or coal, where they change engines or crews, or where, due to
topography, conditions of the track, or congestion because of
junction, trains must be driven at paces slow enough for boarding
by unauthorized persons.

A pilot train was to precede our own, a precaution found
necessary in this region of expanding railroad services and con-
tracting confidences. Many cow-catchers had been blown off by
old-fashioned torpedoes clamped to the rail and detonated by
contact.

I asked about the personnel itself, the driving and signal and
coupling crews. Russell Pasha said they were all known to the
Cairo police. He said, however, that the frictions in and around
Jerusalem were of such explosive heat that there was nothing a
police officer could do but stay fit, stay awake, and be instantly
ready to shoot. He cautioned me to shoot on even slight suspicion.
I asked him to reconcile this advice with what had seemed almost
the reverse of it only a few days before. He told me we were mov-
ing into a climate of "unclassifiable fanaticism," with much of the
feeling churned up and kept in ferment by the hostile feelings of
the Jews for the Arabs and vice versa,

Not being a politician but a police officer and thus more ac-
customed to the essential goodness of man with only occasional,
individual deviations into rogue behavior, I had thought as in-
deed the English press had urged us to think that the Balfour
Declaration had been drafted for the sole purpose of solving the

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 25

very problem Russell Pasha was now telling me was so explosive.
The declaration was surely simple enough in outline, and favored
the establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish
people. His Majesty's Government further promised to bring its
best endeavor to bear on the fruition of this hope in a practical
sense, so that nothing would be done to curtail civil rights or to
prejudice civil or religious rights of the existing non- Jewish com-
munities then living in Palestine.

That was the main outline of it and it was put forth only a few
years before Mr. Churchill's visit there. I believe the date was
1917.

In this very regard, with perhaps too much of the Balfour
remedy coming out (according to the Arabs) to favor the Jews
disproportionately, the Palestine White Paper took heed a few years
later of the plight of landless Arabs, and suggested curtailment
of land to the Jews and the controlling of further Jewish immigra-
tion while so many Arabs were unemployed. And this was a mere
dozen years after the first! And this, of course, because it sought
to correct what was considered an injustice against the Arabs, re-
kindled the wrath of the Jews.

It is, however, very hard to know what to do with vexed popu-
lations.

Thinking back over Egypt, we've surely had a rum time there,
too. Even as we were leaving, the Milner Report, that offered
freedom to Egypt with the guarantee of certain British interests
there, seemed to stir up more dark waters than it settled. When
the British released Zaghlul, there were more anti-British out-
breaks than ever before. And the culminating inability of Zaghlul
to come to any sort of workable agreement with the then Prime
Minister (1924) Ramsay MacDonald led to the British ultimatum
"of that year. The assassination of Sir Lee Stack, Governor General
of the Sudan, was the last straw before the imposing of repressive
measures.

People far from these things, and out of the sight and the sound
of the collision of them and the import of them, can too quickly
dismiss the enduring significance of the phrase, u to maintain the
tranquillity of the realm." And I hope no American readers will
seek clues in this book to the glib challenge so often put to the

26 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

English these days (and through the past three centimes as well,
I suppose) in such half-mocking phrases as: "What the hell are
the British doing there in the first place?" We hear it everywhere.

Let us say that we have made some mistakes but that we deeply
believe the good overbalances the evil.

As we packed for our trip to Jerusalem, Mr. Churchill received
word from London that an Italian general named Badoglio was
preparing a troop movement into Libya. Mussolini's new govern-
ment represented at this time little more than a successful street
parade, headed by a noisy man with patent leather shoes and a
bombastic program and backed up with a shouting mob of pom-
aded and sweaty ruffians. It was, of course, to turn into some-
what more than this.

We were packed and ready for departure to the train that would
bear us, without incident, we hoped, to Jerusalem. Lawrence, in
the lobby of the Semiramis, asked if our party were on its way
down. Winston Churchill was standing on the balcony alone, look-
ing west across the wide wilderness of North Africa.

"If Badoglio is on his way," he said, "we'll have to be coming
back here someday." A slight chill went through me. I certainly
never expected to hear of Italians in Africa.

This part of the world, with the exception of patches close to
the Nile, seems to me to be God's revenge on the impenitence of
an the wrongdoing of mankind since Adam. Mr. Churchill had
the great detachment of mind to see what he had come to look
for, and if he had a few hours to himself and found something
either beautiful or striking he would paint it. He was such a trav-
eler and reader of maps, so much a man in motion, that even new
places lost their novelty, through advanced study, before they
received his personal inspection. I saw him describe, on first
visits, the detailed movements of every involved unit in three
battles Balaklava, Waterloo, and Gettysburg to the astonish-
ment of experts who were with us.

This was true not only of the sections we were departing but
the confusions into which we were being sent. At the first great
deadlock of forces in the struggle of World War I, just prior to
the close of the year 1914, it had been Churchill who strongly
urged the idea of the British government that British strength

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 27

be shifted to the Near East while the armies of France sought to
contain the Germans on the Western front His views were sup-
ported not only by Prime Minister Lloyd George, but by the
highest military authority that we had Kitchener himself. With
equal force and equally stunning logic, the views were opposed by
Joffre among the French generals and most vigorously by our Sir
John French.

But Churchill's enthusiasm, his record, his persuasiveness won
the government's decision to take this risk. The man was not yet
forty.

The assault upon the Dardanelles was beaten off by the Turks
from their superior position upon the heights and Winston
Churchill's great hopes suddenly collapsed when forces English,
French, and Australian could no longer hold GaUipoli and had
to be evacuated. This was miraculously accomplished without loss
but it was a huge failure in an enormous undertaking, and the
Straits remained closed to us for the remainder of the war and
prevented support from the Allies ever reaching the Russians
through these waters. No man entirely knows the inner feelings
of Mr. Churchill about this, but I have seen him walk away from
conversations when they turned to this sad expedition. We lost
everything we tried for here, including three battleships Goliath,
Triumph and Majestic. The great name to emerge from all this
was Mustapha Kemal For Churchill, it was like losing his own
children for he had been First Lord of the Admiralty from 1911
to 1915. I am told by men close to him that nothing ever shook
him so hard again until the fall of Singapore and the sinking of
the Prince of Wales and the Repulse.

This is mentioned only to show Churchill's acquaintance with
the territories at this end of the Mediterranean Sea.

Archie Sinclair, still suffering from typhoid, was left behind to
recover in a nursing home near the Semiramis. Sir Herbert Samuel
became most important to our tour, as Palestine's High Commis-
sioner. Because of the warnings we had received through the Cairo
police about the planned assassination of Churchill, I went at once
on arrival in Jerusalem to Sir Herbert to ask what special precau-
tions he might recommend to us for his own corner of the world.

I met the two special officers of the Palestine police he had

28 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

sent to accompany us. They did not look like police officers to
me. They looked like enthusiastic tourists in uniforms that had
been cut to fit other people. Perhaps it is not quite fair to them
for I never had reason on this trip to Jerusalem to question their
willingness to stand forth in the presence of danger and do their
duty. But they surely seemed inexperienced, even naive. They ate
all the time. They whispered a great deal. They had only the most
random guesses as to where and how we might expect trouble.
Worse, they had no plan at all for how they might meet trouble
when it came. They anticipated nothing. They seemed more
empty-headed than nonchalant. They were known up and down
the train as Mutt and Jeff. The tall one looked like a piece of farm
machinery, bent over and abandoned. His arms were surely too
long for any kind of physical combat and when he sat down his
knuckles dragged on the floor. His companion was pink and full
and looked like a heaping barrow of summer vegetables. The two
of them fully armed did not seem a good match for an Arabian
beggar. And they were English, which made it the more im-
plausible.

We dragged forth from Cairo and headed for the Holy Land. I
secured the train as best I could and inspected the travel permits
of everyone in the cars coupled to our car. I politely ordered Mr.
and Mrs. Churchill to remain in their compartment no matter
what kind of outside disturbance they heard and inspected their
windows. Mrs. Churchill fanned herself quietly and Lord Tren-
chard smiled funereally at my concern, the only time I ever saw
his expression change. It was not a smile, merely a slight move-
ment in the cheek muscles.

Churchill was all for the new place. Egypt was behind. Sir Her-
bert had already briefed him on ever new complexities and laid out
the inevitable sheaf of plans for dealing with the insoluble. Merely
by adjusting his glasses, Mr. Churchill seemed to adjust himself to
the perennial problem of finding a way out when there was none.

Mutt and Jeff walked down the corridor, Mutt chewing a native
plantain. Jeff whistled "The Long, Long Trail," then changed to
"Baby's Prayer at Twilight," tunes that always made me fidgety
even when seriously engaged* He lighted a cigarette (forbidden
around Mr. Churchill) and with the smoke curling about his

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 29

squinty eyes began to finger what looked like a clip of cartridges.
Then I saw that it was not cartridges but a new spool of film for
a camera. I told him to put up his camera and reminded him that
security officers appeared in pictures as little as possible and never
took any pictures of their own. He suggested that I cool my views
at an open window whereupon I suggested I might reduce him
enough to pass him through an open window and took the film
forcibly from him.

We came to the Biblical town of Gaza, swollen with beggars
and paved with sheep manure. The legendary Samson was indeed
fortunate to be "eyeless" here for it is quite the most complete
municipal horror I ever saw in the Near East.

There was a large mosque near the station. Our train stopped.
Colonel Lawrence appeared at the door of the Churchill compart-
ment. He was robed, burnoosed, sashed, scimitared and slippered.
Outside there was a huge mob, howling and squealing. I never
could quickly read these mobs. In front of Fuad's Abdin palace,
was it all savage ferocity or was there some schoolboy fun in the
fight we had, the RAF sergeant and I? When Churchill fell from
his camel, I was at first frightened at the sight and movement of
the sheiks on horseback. There was something positively minatory
in their very solicitude. I feared that they might kill the man if lie
refused their help.

Here it was again.

"We aren't leaving the train at this spot?" I asked Lawrence.

"Yes," he said. "It's prearranged."

"But it's a true hellhole."

Lawrence peered out the carriage window as if to gauge my
estimate against his own. It was a familiar enough city to him, of
course, as indeed was every other from waterhole to domed and
pavilioned capitol for half a million square miles. In a strange
sense it was Lawrence's land, by legacy to him from these Arabs.

Lawrence was not at all disturbed by the appearance of the
crowd. He tapped on Churchill's door which opened at once. Sir
Herbert, Boom Trenchard (an almost cosmic incongruity in
G^za), Churchill, Lawrence and myself went to the end of the car.

"What about Mutt and Jeff?" I asked Lawrence.

30 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

"They're Sir Herbert's worry, Thompson. Let's just lose them
and see if they survive by themselves."

"But don't you feel the need of them? They're a couple of extra

guns."

"They're a couple of extra jokers. We're going to the big hall
next to the mosque. I'm taking the group inside. These are Arabs.
Churchill is going to speak to them briefly. And I'll translate. I
think: we'll be all right. You come with us to the door. Then
stand before it till we come out again. Stand without moving."

I am not going to get into the controversy about T. E. Lawrence.
I spent many days and many hundreds of hours with him. I am
positive he was a man of unbelievable and inscrutable inner
power. I do not know what this was. Tribal leaders, high and low,
absolute rulers of unfrequented places as remote, fancied and
impenetrable as Hadramaut, as unheard of and unlikely as Khoi
and Zakho and Jeziret ibn Omar, would come in splendor or awe
and humble themselves before this little Englishman.

Evidence of this magic was present before us even before we
stepped down from the carriages. It is doubtful whether the Arabs,
with the unclassifiable admixture here in the mob at Gaza of
Lebanese, Iraqi, Alaouites, Djebel Druses, Turks, Syrians, Jews,
Armenians, Kurds and Persians whether more than three or four
in the crowd knew which was Churchill. Or much cared. We were
just a knot of Europeans with hats on. Lawrence was the man.

No Pope of Rome ever had more command before his own
worshippers in the Palazzo. And Colonel Lawrence raised his
hand slowly, the first and second fingers lifted above the other
two for silence and for blessing. He could have owned their earth.
He did own it Every man froze in respect, in a kind of New
Testament adoration of shepherds for a master. It was quite weird
and very comforting.

We passed through these murderous-looking men and they
parted a way for us without struggle. Many touched Lawrence as
he moved forward among them. Far off, drums were beating, and
a horse neighed. A muezzin's cry fell sadly among us from the
single minaret of the mosque.

To me the Middle East any part of it and at any time of the
day always has the appearance that an insurrection is well

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 31

started and will momentarily assert itself. It's in the keen-eyed,
unwinking look of tie bedouin, in the swashbuckling flamboyance
of the keffiyehs, in the slant of Ms tarboosh, the flash of his teeth,
the glint of his knife. These men moved with the beauty of lizards
hardly at all or too fast for the eye to follow.

The enormous masses of men and materials that had been
moved from one place to another because Mr. Churchill thought
it a good idea, came to me now in the presence of this exquisitely
dilapidated circus, in this hideous Old Testament junkyard of dead
economies, black tobacco, and casual slaughter. The places where
men must go to fight and die are indeed never picturesque, seem
to warn against trespass by forbidding life rather than attracting
it; often not even wearing the promise life could be there sustained.

Here where Sir James Murray had failed, and where Colonel
Lawrence's undisputed brilliance was to find itself in these deserts
that protect the throat of Asia, where the great complex of this
phase of World War I was settled over these stinking alleys and
rutted human spillways, was another lighted lamp in this gloomy
part of England's reach and her responsibility.

The British had been badly hurt right here; and still smarting,
had yet won through somehow when they were about to be en-
gulfed altogether. And this little man Lawrence, here at the touch
of a wrist, had done this.

Lawrence was so greatly loved and so fanatically respected that
he could have established his own empire from Alexandretta to
the Indus. He knew this, too. What his first fealty was can never
be known for sure, but his sense that he had been betrayed by
his own people or their politicians, or that the Arab world as
he knew it had been betrayed, these doubts and despairs were
probably a part of his mental and emotional burden to the very
day he crashed on his motorbike in Surrey. One merely knew he
was special.

On the way to the hall where Churchill was to speak and to
receive homages of diverse though obscure substance, I saw him
looking about quickly from side to side, not with apprehension
(though I was frankly feeling a bit myself), but possibly to locate
the "special police" that had been assigned to him. We were hardly
fifty feet from the train, the noise of the crowd rising as we ad-

32 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

vanced. I looked back at our carriages, to place our return journey
in my eye, and suddenly saw our two special police Mutt and
Jeff standing in Mr. Churchill's compartment, taking pictures!
I have rarely felt such exasperation or such impotence. What in-
deed is the responsibility of Scotland Yard in such a situation?
Should I inform the High Commissioner of Palestine he had
clowns in his party?

I did what I always do. I slogged along saying nothing, independ-
ently daring the world to start something. As usual I had to see
everything and see it first. This incident always calmed me down
and hours or days later managed to amuse me. But there was a
bit more security duty than one man should be given and though
I had two revolvers (Winston usually handed me his when we
were traveling together, but carried it himself when alone if he re-
membered and would use it instantly), I also had but two hands.

The red sea of Arabian faces continued to part for us clear to
the hall. It was a gathering of tribal chiefs. A great cheer went up,
vaguely frightening. Lawrence stood at the battered entrance of
this jerrymade architectural anomaly of a public building, deferen-
tially waving Mr. Churchill ahead with a low sweep of his hooded
arm. Sir Herbert followed. Lawrence reminded me, with a faint
uplift of his forefinger, nothing more, of my duty at the door.
Dignitaries of many morals and intentions went inside sweating,
perfumed, transfixed, I stood on the porch, two feet above the
remainder of Colonel Lawrence's Arab world.

After two hours of standing, I began to feel certain distresses.
Impatience was getting more than noticeable in the crowd before
me. Oriental police can become so interested in spectacles of all
kinds that they forget their station, and such of them as appeared
to be scattered about the "square" truly an undeveloped rubble
were no longer able to quiet the crowd's shouting and swaying.

Before long, it was apparent that their impatience would break
and that they would mob the hall itself, sweeping me in ahead of
it though not before I had emptied my revolvers. Five or six
policemen, armed with lead-loaded staves, shouldered and banged
through the crowd, sensing the same emergency as I did, and
formed a ring between the crowd and the porch. But it was not
enough to discourage or retard those in the center. Though they

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 33

laid about, knocking over some of those who were too eagerly
gesticulating in the very front, others merely stepped up and stood
above them, maintaining and increasing the clamor. Police on
horseback charged in, cruelly insensitive to whom they trampled
or the cries that went up. The mounted police drew sabers.

Suddenly I realized what they were crying. It was "Shershil!"
"Shershil!" They wanted to see the great man! They wanted to
bow to him, to turn on a show of the exaggerated obeisances that
were the custom of the land. Again I did not know what to do,
and though I could take no alarm as to their intent when their
desire was to honor Churchill, I could take no comfort over the
way they were setting about doing it. With bitter humor I realized
they were going to honor Winston Churchill no matter who might
get himself incidentally killed in the ceremony. That he was al-
ready being torrentially honored within made no difference, for
he was out of sight.

Swords and staves came down on heads and forearms and
echoes of screaming that would have demoralized Babel tore the
air of modern Gaza. I merely stood still, a gun in my hand, my
arms crossed.

The crowd was now being effectively enough coped with to be
furious and they began to physically attack the mounted Arabs
and Palestinians. One man vaulted the rump of a horse and swept
the rider out of his saddle. Bridles were seized with force and the
horses' heads pulled down, their riders unseated and beaten. One
man reached the porch and I sent him sprawling senseless with
an uppercut to the jaw. The noise was now agonized, the faces
envenomed, and the guards helpless. Two of them who had lost
their mounts jumped to the porch with me and began cutting the
air in all directions.

It was at this instant that Lawrence showed himself. He was
alone. He held up his hand and invoked the blessings of Allah,
smiled easily, even courteously to me and to my two brand new
Arabian Mends, turned back to the door, opened it, and stood
proudly beside it, ushering forth Mr. Churchill.

Churchill just stood there, smiling and nodding like a chubby
choirboy with the chores of a long service behind. Riders found
their horses and remounted. The crowd cheered and in a joyous

34 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

rhythm called Ms name over and over again. They crowded up to
Mm, packing closely upon us. They would not let Churchill move.
The cheering and the adulation lasted forever. (The Orient is
never hurried.) There was a toot on the train whistle, the enthu-
siasm having spread that far.

We walked slowly back through Gaza. Thousands followed and
pressed about, but the soft words of Lawrence kept the dignity of
our little procession unmarred to the official carriages. Churchill
stood up at the end of his carriage once more, flanked by me
and Lawrence, with the sun and the Mediterranean behind
him and the crowd in front. The brightness of the sun seemed
to orientalize the spread of color before us and to sharpen the ex-
pressions and enrich them. Flashes of teeth, of jewel and dagger,
signaled back at the sun. We gently pulled away, the crowd
salaaming in tireless exercise, and a stampede of magnificent
horses raced the train and stayed beside it for many miles, even
until we moved inland toward Hebron.

Eight or nine times we stopped, often because the right-of-way
was choked with living bodies wanting to salute the famous man
whose name they knew so well but could not ever quite speak.
And each time he rose and appeared. Each time too that Lawrence
stood by him, the roar of salutation subsided and the mood be-
came quiet and prayerful.

I had finally apprehended that Mutt and Jeff, while authorized
for the trip, were not the best of protection even for Sir Herbert,
for neither had much of a record at the special kind of security
work needed on such journeys, among such volatile peoples. Mutt,
the taller, was a mere redcap, the deprecating title assigned to cops
in the British military police. The other, Jeff, had won a good
record as an officer in the fighting before Allenby's entry into Jeru-
salem and had stayed on in the country, getting a job with the
Palestine gendarmerie. But because both men were now almost
useless and perpetually underfoot with their cameras, and because
I had had enough of their happy disregard of the job they'd been
sent on, I suggested to Mr. Churchill that they be denied the privi-
lege of popping constantly into his own space to take snapshots.
He told me to take care of the matter in whatever way I should

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 35

wish, but to do it quietly so as not to offend Sir Herbert or reflect
on administrative judgments back in Government House.

I did not use the American expression that "I would beat their
brains out" only because I had not yet heard it, but I did tell them
to stay out of the Old Man's compartment or I would scatter them
along the right-of-way and take a picture of myself doing so for
their families back home, and the honor of their lieutenant back
in Jerusalem whoever he might turn out to be. I reminded them
they might have been useful in Gaza if they had come to the Holy
Land for a purpose other than to fill their damn albums, that
we'd had a bit of a "do" there when another gun might have been
useful. I told them the car ahead was filled with sabbatical mis-
sionaries on a Cook's Tour and they'd better get up in it

They went away very vexed, and a little snappy with each other.
I gave them the baggage detail in the Jerusalem station though I
had no such authority, and we saw no more of each other satis-
factory to both sides, I've no doubt.

Our tour of Palestine and of Iraq the Iraqi question still re-
mains, at least for me, the most confused of any problem to which
Mr. Churchill has ever had to attach himself our travels over
these spots of Biblical history were most hurried, often breathless,
and crowded with interfering dislocations such as demands for
unscheduled speeches (most of which Sir Herbert urged Mr.
Churchill to make), laying of wreaths upon monuments in the
British Military Cemetery outside Jerusalem, and the double list
of places that the Secretary for Colonies had to see and the places
he was personally determined to see.

His first view of the River Jordan brought forth this comment:
"Thompson, the energy of that river turned into electricity will
indeed make this desert blossom." Indeed, the Jordan was in a
fine rage, the mass of its stream being greatly in excess to what I
had envisioned from the Bible studies of my pious boyhood. And
the swiftness of it was equally impressive.

Most everything in the Holy Land is sad and disappointing, and
the landmarks of man are the worst Mr, Churchill had an ap-
pointment with Phineas Rutenberg, a powerful man of the Jewish
religion, for the arranging and awarding of an irrigation canal.
The desert aspect of the Holy Land is so fearsome as to seem be-

36 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

yond irrigation, and the uses of water and of power were always
in the forward part of Churchill's imagination. How to assemble
and direct new forces, or how to improve the use of the present
ones, was part of the working mechanism of Churchill's mind.
World War I, then only recently ended, brought forth the military
tank. Without inventing any of its component parts, Winston
Churchill and no one else had produced the first tank, and had
done so over the most savage criticism of nearly every military
expert in England. He saw new power in the river Jordan, as he
had seen a new weapon in the tank.

Now he was again to be criticized, this time for impetuous deal-
ing with the controversial Rutenberg. Upon his return from Pal-
estine, and in defense of Rutenberg, Churchill said to the House
of Commons: "It is hard enough in all conscience to make a new
Zion, but if, over the portals of the New Jerusalem, you are going
to inscribe the legend, 'No Israelite need apply, 5 1 hope the House
will permit me in the future to confine my attention exclusively to
Irish matters."

^Hurrying about the Holy Land with Mr. Churchill and with
the ever-present Lawrence, I did not of course know that some
years hence I would read impressions of these days, and views
of the men who guided them, in Lawrence's famous book The
Seven Pillars of Wisdom and there encounter what I consider the
most accurate summary of Mr. Churchill's impact on others. Be-
cause it bears reference to these days of hectic experiences, it may
interest American readers. "Churchill in a few weeks made
straight all the tangle, finding solutions, fulfilling, I think, our
promises in letter and spirit, where humanly possible, without
sacrificing any interests of our Empire or of the peoples con-
cerned,"

To whatever place we might go, this seemed the effect he pro-
duced.

The sights were forlorn, a continuation of Gaza. Jericho, for
example, is dried mud and not a bit more than that, and a broom
could sweep away what could easily be knocked loose with a pick
handle. Roads aren't roads, but rather unencumbered stretches
in the adjacent desert and usually without markings.

There were two appearances of real beauty: the Dead Sea and

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 37

the Jewish population. The Jews were a fine and clear-eyed ele-
ment, strong and free in their movements, the men attentive and
quick of mind, their women calm, deep-breasted, of a silent but
faintly smiling cast.

Churchill complimented a group of adults who surrounded the
beginnings of a new settlement. The work was well started. A
throng of children mixed in amongst us, as was common wher-
ever the party stopped. Through Lawrence and another inter-
preter, Mr. Churchill complimented them all on the great progress
being made, then touched a pair of youngsters near him, and
added: "You do not seem to have lost much time in other direc-
tions, either." Happy laughter rang out as soon as Lawrence had
translated the words to their understanding.

At Gethsemane, Mr, Churchill moved away from the party and
disappeared. I had to remain close to him but found a clump of
flowering thorn-bushes from which I could keep him in view and
survey routes of access to him. He remained here for a long time,
almost motionless (rare for him) in meditations of his own, and
was silent for the ride back from the place. It is enough to re-
member what occurred here for it to be sorrowful and silence-
bearing. The sound of the Crusades is still about one here. So
even is the sound of the tamping in of the base of the Cross, the
fearful activity of preparing a man for death in this way. Vespasian
had been on this very knoll, and Titus too, and the moody, im-
mortal Josephus.

My own mind was melancholy and I welcomed the silence.
And more than welcomed tea in Government House. This was in
a court open to the sky, but protected by direct sun from the
planting of gardens about the roof.

This was the house that the Kaiser had built, mentioned earlier,
and his definite expectation that he would soon occupy it was clear
to all from many signs that were allowed to stay where they had
been first affixed. There was a carved German Eagle over the main
gate at the entrance to the grounds. On the door of one vast room
was a sign, in German, "The Kaiser's Bedroom," and across from
it "The Kaiserin's Bedroom/* They were in gold.

Sir Herbert Samuel lived here now! What a world!

I was served tea in a corner of the terrace by myself. I felt tired

38 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

and sad. In the Orient one does an unbelievable amount of walk-
ing, and few people who read their Bible realize that when Mary
bathed the feet of Jesus, it was the most refreshing and relaxing
ministration she could offer him.

At Mr. Churchill's table there were ten. Mrs. Churchill joined
the men presently, looking cool and collected. They rose, and the
talk resumed. Soon there was laughter again, and rich talk.

Lawrence had Ms back to my litHe table (members of the
Special Branch of Scotland Yard do not take offense at these
things; they do not take offense at anything but disobedience on
the part of their charges and Churchill had been most tractable
of late). They were talking about the Dardanelles again. Soldiers
bury their dead but the battles are unconquerable. The names of
Asquith, and Balfour, and frequently the name of Lloyd George
came up, and because I had served him so recently I was keen to
know other appraisals. Alas, these are not for the ears of Scot-
land Yard, or if they reach the ears, they never get to the type-
writers.

In the worst days of World War II, when we had sustained an
almost engulfing calamity and had as quickly prescribed its haz-
ardous counterblow, the deadly secret slipped out into my hear-
ing. "I'm sorry I heard that, sir," I said to Winston, who imme-
diately looked at me and smiled: "You are from Scotland Yard,
Thompson, and I'm sure you didn't hear it."

The talk ran on down many of the great moments these men
liad survived and moments, too, that they'd instigated. They
talked of Kitchener's loss in the North Sea, and it was remarked
that his nerve had been lost before death caught him; that the
debacle of the Dardanelles broke Ms spirit

Churchill wanted Lawrence to accompany the party back to
England. We were to leave in a very short time from Aleppo, then
go to Malta and Naples. But Lawrence was engaged, so he said,
for a meeting in the heart of Iraq.

Lawrence by this time had taken possession of my own imagina-
tion, after the astonishing displays of Ms power. These displays
were particularly astonishing by reason of being so simple in a
land so riotous; astonishing to find a man so meek and unostenta-

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 39

tious in a land where custom and show-of-power are so altogether
the reverse of this.

I had heard Lloyd George talk of the Dardanelles and GallipolL
He had powerfully supported Churchill's advocacy of this amazing
undertaking. And it had, like most great gambles, almost come
off. At a time when Sir Douglas Haig's campaign, in the battle of
the Somme alone, had cost Britain six hundred thousand casual-
ties, a plan that would stop the Turks and divert the Germans to
the Russians in the East made hard sense to many minds. And
it was then that Churchill had set Lawrence to work. Who could
there be, today, who could say that without these two men here
twenty feet from me, the Kaiser might indeed be upstairs in this
very palace at this very hour, looking forth upon domains that
were his here from the Mount of Olives clear on to the caravan
paths in Baluchistan? How barely missed it was!

In guarding the life of Lloyd George, how many times I heard
the same said of that wonderful mind and energy. And indeed
with equal plausibility. For it had been Lloyd George and no other
who, in April, 1917, when the Admiralty was in despair and when
in a single month the Germans had sunk eight hundred seventy-five
thousand tons of shipping, had insisted on the convoy. That was
not the end but from there it was measurable, and it was the
bouncy little cobbler's son who did it. Ten months after he forced
the idea upon the Admiralty, it was an unqualified success and
from that day to the Armistice, the Allies built ships faster than
the Germans could sink them.

What carnage! What cosmic stupidity! What last-minute rescue!
We seemed to have won everything as narrowly as the Germans
missed it.

It was part of my duty to study Churchill. He had made some
perfectly awful mistakes, and would make others, some of which
I would myself witness while in process of their construction. Ant-
werp still hung over his head and would still, even by 1921, get
parenthetical mentions in editorials. For Churchill was never
stingy in giving his enemies an abundance and variety of copy.
Everything he said was either quotable or misquotable. I knew
there would be plenty of rows. Yet always he had come forth
to face Ms accusers, had taken his whippings, had been in every

40 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

instance overwhelmingly and disarmingly candid. No man could
ever doubt his sincerity or his courage. In the very circumstances
upon which they reminisced, the sad, regrettable, avertible dis-
aster that the Dardanelles and Gallipoli were, the Committee of
Inquiry had exonerated Churchill. Of all those put under inter-
rogation he had come off best. His basic strategy had been up-
held and is today. It was Kitchener (who had been too late on occa-
sions) and De Robeck (who had too soon broken off the action,
not knowing the Turks and the Germans were out of ammunition)
and Asquith himself (for not driving Kitchener harder, even
though he was a field marshal) it was these men who came out
badly, not as villains of course but as policy makers and military
leaders guilty of errors of grievous misjudgment.

Lawrence reminded Churchill and Sir Herbert that he (Law-
rence) did not seem to know any longer how to get on with the
English and it was as well he had made a "previous engage-
ment" in the desert of Trans-Jordan. Lawrence had disgruntled
and upset a number of people, first by refusing, and none too
civilly, any decorations for his great victory in Arabia. He'd
spurned the Commander of the Bath and, I believe, also the
D.S.O. And there were some Churchill himself among them,
for he'd rebuked Lawrence for it who felt he had been dis-
courteous to His Majesty George V. At the Paris Peace Con-
ference, Lawrence had been a bit more colorful than matters re-
quired, attending sessions in Arab dress, even to red sash and
dagger. His personal behavior was at times close to scandalous,
which is difficult in Paris. Winston Churchill, who so much
admired this strangely inscrutable and marvelously gifted tactician
and wished great honors for him in the government, was more
than once appalled in Paris in his sincere effort to get the desert
out of the man Lawrence now that the desert war was won; and
to Anglicize Lawrence enough for him to accept a few medals.
But Churchill could not urbanize Lawrence. At the same time he
would never allow any man in his presence to subtract a tup-
pence from the true values that Lawrence had brought to Brit-
ain's causes. And as recently as 1954, in March, he permitted the
reissue of the same flattering estimate of Lawrence which he had

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 41

made in 1936, the year after Lawrence was killed. Churchill's
loyalty to causes and to people was unshakable and was becom-
ing apparent to me that far back and on such little contact as I
have described.

There was to be a large dinner that night (I grew to dread these
unending bores, but the worst were in the Kremlin!) and it was
suggested that, because there would be a number of important
Middle East leaders present, a show of medals and decorations
would be in order.

That night, as I stood guard and was mistaken variously for
a butler or guest (never for a eunuch, I trust, though there had
been many about), I noticed that Mr. Churchill was wearing a
medal which I had never before seen. And no wonder, for he is
the only Englishman to have been given it. General Pershing
pinned it on him. It is the American Distinguished Service Medal.
As Minister of Munitions during the war, it had been one of his
duties to equip the U.S. troops, to see that they were prepared for
combat. He had done this so well that Pershing himself had be-
stowed the decoration. Bernard Baruch had attended this cere-
mony and from the day that Baruch and Churchill met, they be-
came and remained friends. Baruch had come back and forth all
during the war, as head of the War Industries Board. Churchill
always looks him up in America and greatly admires him; but I do
not think he felt much more for Pershing than he did for de
Gaulle. They had a kindred coldness.

Our stay was suddenly over. Churchill of course went right to
work, even before the last of the well-wishers had stopped waving,
and we began cutting through the waters of the Levant, heading
westward. He was this time a true model of deportment and I en-
joyed this short voyage more than any other with Mm except
possibly the trip for the signing of the Atlantic Pact. As usual I
had to wait until the official reports were in and explanatory ex-
cerpts of them were appearing in London newspapers, not so much
to find out where I'd just been as to see how successful the work
of Mr. Churchill had been and to see also what the work was.

I mentioned that one of the objectives as Secretary for Colonies
Secretary for Ak had been to survey Egypt, portions of the

42 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

Sudan, Palestine, and most particularly Iraq, to see if the inaugura-
tion of an ak patrol could not be an effective replacement for
ground troops now garrisoned in great numbers in these remote
places.

Some days after our return I was pleased to read in the Times
(Mr. Churchill is a voracious newspaper reader, and while he is
reading his papers, usually in bed and between the hours of seven-
thirty and nine or nine-thirty, I am just outside his room, wher-
ever it may be, reading my own) that a full account of the mis-
sion was published, together with some figures as they were
submitted to the House of Commons that represented substantial
savings to the Crown.

Our troops in Iraq cost the government about $200,000,000 a
year. Churchill urged the government to hand over the assignment
to his air patrol and to return to their homeland the armies of oc-
cupation. You will remember how miserably housed he found
them to be. This struck a welcome note from a sentimental view
of things, but from the fiscal it was even more convincing. The
ak patrol could do the work faster, oftener, with a show of much
greater striking power. And it could save the government $165,-
000,000 a year! It was passed at once.

This was the happy time of return to his homeland. There were
of course numerous problems, some ugly, that were on his desk
each morning and in his mind each night. And as Secretary of
Colonies, the Iggh question was very much a problem. But it
was the return to his family that brought deep and moving gratifi-
cations to him. World War I was over and England, if not intact,
at least was not breached; at least was >still free and unshamed.

He and Mrs. Churchill had been through the agony of the loss
of a little child Marigold Frances, who was born in 1918 and
died in her third year but the solidity of the family was real and
happy, and assured as well, for there were two daughters surviv-
ing, Sarah and Diana, a son Randolph, and a third daughter Mary,
not yet born but due.

About this time I saw at close range the strength of his stoicism.
It came about as a result of the pain of disappointment. Winston

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 43

Churchill was so obviously the logical appointment for the Chan-
cellorship of the Exchequer that no man thought Lloyd George
could withhold it from him, or that he would conceivably want to
do so.

It was in late* 1921. Lloyd George's Cabinet was not too sturdy,
and Tory opposition was building to challenge the Coalition. Lead-
ership of the House goes with the Exchequer office (usually, too,
succession to the premiership). Churchill was already considered,
not only by the press but by most of those in the House itself, as
Parliament's de facto leader anyhow. He was a Liberal

Lloyd George feared that the Conservative machine would
and could end his painfully assembled Coalition. And he did not
give Churchill the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer. I am sure
it crushed Winston. It astounded the British Isles and was the sub-
ject of editorials in American newspapers.

By this time I had become very attached to this man and had
looked forward each new morning to his cheerful: "Good morning,
Thompson, got your gun?"

That morning the office workers about him, the secretarial staff
and clerks, all shared the desolation they knew he suffered. I
dreaded seeing him. I could not arrange a proper sentence in my
mind., yet I could not let such a momentous hurt happen to him
even though it was none of my duty to remark on it.

He must have seen the distress in my face and wished to spare
me the embarrassment of speaking of it, for he brightened
roguishly, peered up at me by peering over Ms glasses (I always
felt a foot above him for he crouched so) and said with a twinkle:
"It is obvious, Thompson, you have little influence with the man
you last protected. See that you improve this."

I must say I went away with a lump in my throat that he could
be this gay when the circumstance was so bitter. But it was char-
acteristic of his aptitude and inventiveness for making up a phrase
on the spur of the moment.

Character summaries, and reviews of his personality and ac-
complishments, began to appear in quantity about this time. All
of them spoke with affection, admiration or gratitude but some of
them, because of the imputation of motive (personal ambition
was common among these), hurt him deeply.

44 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

Of these latter, Harold Begbie's, in his book The Mirrors of
Downing Street, was typical:

With the exception of Lloyd George, Mr. Churchill is the most
interesting figure in the House. From the start of his career he was
an element of great promise. Sometimes he disappointed his ad-
mirers but he never destroyed their hopes. No man is more diffi-
cult to shout down. From his youth he fiercely loved England, war
and politics. Politics, to him, are almost as exciting as war and
quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in
politics many times.

He has many qualities of real greatness but has he the unify-
ing spirit of character? He has truly brilliant gifts, but you cannot
quite depend on them. His love for danger runs away with his
discretion. His passion for adventure makes him forget the im-
portance of the goal. Mr. Churchill carries great guns, but his,
navigation is uncertain. His effect on men is one of interest and
curiosity, not of admiration and loyalty. His power is the power
of gifts, not character. Men watch him but do not follow him. He
beguiles their reason but never warms their emotions.

It was expected, and I think today by Mr. Churchill himself y
upon recalling conversations held among his party on the trip
back through the Mediterranean, that Lloyd George would surely
give the Chancellorship to Winston. It was agreed everywhere,
not only casually among passersby, if one chanced to catch their
talk, but informally by those in the know, those at policy and in-
fluence-bearing levels, in the press, and about government build-
ings.

In point of experience he seemed to know more (for his age,
forty-seven) than ifftatffy any man in English history. Surely he
carried most every secret there was, could find intelligent flaws
in the plans of others, and was welcome among men of every de-
gree for one most engaging attribute: he would give sober reply
to any question put him, which gave the interrogator the impres-
sion, always true, that Churchill had himself long considered that
same question and could bring the approach of answer to it, if
not the answer entire. He always knew where the road was, if, as
some will insist to the end, he did not always know where he, or
England, was on that road.

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 45

What man in British, history and I am sure if Mr. David
Lloyd George were himself alive today to read these thoughts
he would not feel I was slighting him by the comparison had
ever been trusted with the responsibility of so many offices, re-
quiring such diverse abilities and contrasting qualities of decision?
And at so early an age? He had been in one ministerial capacity
or another for nearly the full length of his political life since he
set about having one at all. It began with the Undersecretaryship
for the Colonies. Then he was made President of the Board of
Trade, later Home Secretary, and after that and in succession
First Lord of the Admiralty, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancas-
ter, Minister of Munitions, Secretary of State for War and for Air,
and Secretary for Colonies.

Yet the next step in this proper progression, the step that now
seemed most inevitable, was not offered him,

He took this, as the Americans say, "on the chin," He took
more too before long and if there is a man who is more noble in
defeat than Churchill, I am unable to name him.

Though Winston Churchill in defeat is noble, with nothing to
do he is a kicker of wastepaper baskets, with an unbelievably
ungoverned bundle of bad temper. It is better to stay away from
him at such times and this his family seeks to do. And such of his
retainers as can take the day off, or find an emergency miles or
counties away.

I did not so far forsake my own responsibility at this time as
to wonder if it might serve to subdue him a bit if he were re-
minded he was still in danger, but it was apparent to all that if
something active and preferably difficult were not supplied him
soon, many would ask to be relieved from his employ.

Then in the course of a few months, the quixotic course of
events took many turns, some of them doubling clear back on
themselves. Lloyd George's Coalition fell. Bonar Law's Conserva-
tives moved into power.

Churchill was neither a Cabinet minister nor a member. He
was plain Winston Spencer Churchill,

On his way to Buckingham Palace, where it is the custom of re-
tiring ministers to Mss His Majesty's hands upon returning the seals
of office, there were some moments when we were together and

46 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

some manner of resignation to Ms fate had taken place in him.
His humor was back, and Ms urge to fight. I reminded him that
he was, because of membership in the Privy Council, "Right
Honorable/' and some of the glint of the man came back at once.

"They don't want me here! We'll see about that! I'll have to try
somewhere else. But I know where I'm going. I'm just not clear
about the date. Pack a bag, Thompson. I'm going to fight for my
old seat at Dundee."

In England a candidate does not have to "run" in the same dis-
trict in which he lives. He may "stand" for Parliament from what-
ever district is to Ms liking; any district where his chances seem
favorable. Winston had stood for Dundee before.

That night he had an acute attack of appendicitis. The General
Election had already started. I sat outside his room in the nursing
home and was not able to believe my ears when I heard him shout-
ing my name as if he might be at his own desk.

He wanted my newspaperl

Then he wanted his secretary. He wanted several, not just one.
He kept sending all manner of people to telephones, insisting
they answer little questions written to them on slips of paper;
insisting that they come to the nursing home right away. He kept
a schedule and expected others to. When Ms doctors told him he
was sick, he told them he knew it and that was why they had been
called in. Presently his visitors began to arrive one after another,
all day, all evening. It was one of the most complete demoraliza-
tions of the floor and the most awful rout of any theories of proper
visiting hours that had been seen there.

The more his doctors insisted he was too ill to do so much,
the more they were reminded it was now their doing and none
of his. When the chief nurse complained, he told her he would
have Parliament look into the matter and she could expedite her
own cause along with his, if she'd leave the distraction of rules
for people who had time for them.

He was vastly good-natured again and in a few days was vastly
noisy. All of the wheelchair cases made detours to take in this
interesting room, and there was always a heterogeneous half-
circle right outside his door most difficult to classify since num-

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 47

bers of them, and both sexes, were in anything from surgical
gowns to bowlers.

Running against him in Dundee was a nondrinldng Scot named
Scrymgeour, I had heard of him and presently saw much of him.
Too much. Dundee was Ms own home. He was a fanatical tee-
totaler. I believe he was the only teetotaler ever known to have
been raised there. Winston, though far behind in the campaign,
must have felt he had a chance, even with such a late start. And
there would no doubt be a good many things said about liquor.

Churchill announced to his doctors that he had ordered a spe-
cial coach to be attached to the regular Scottish express and that
he was going aboard the train that evening. They were most deeply
concerned, more than the ordinary solicitude that doctors might
be expected to expend on a man of his importance. They were
concerned because they knew how weak lie was, how much he'd
tax himself the instant he left, and how quickly collapse might
follow if he did this.

He was reminded that his stitches had not yet been removed.
"Then I shall wear them in remembrance of you," he most dread-
fully warned them. (And of course he would have.)

In those days I had great strength (much of which is fortunately
still with me) and I was grateful for this because it was called
to use before we ever got much rest again. We carried him aboard
Ms train on a stretcher.

There were but six days left in the General Election. Winston
Churchill did not feel he was likely to win from Dundee so much
as he felt that no Prohibitionist could think to be seated in the
Mother of Parliaments from tMs particular constituency, I must
say and I have nothing against a man having a drink and take
one a day myself that Dundee is the most drunken of cities, at
least for its size, that I have ever seen in the British Isles.

In Scotland I did not suspect the security risk with Mr. Churchill
especially since he had resigned Ms two SecretarysMps would
be a severe one. And this was true. But there was a noticeable
antagonism, even though there was a nice crowd to welcome the
man at the station when we got there.

His corps of electioneering aides came to him to discuss the
strategy of what was left of the campaign period, and the routes

48 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

and locations of halls, meeting rooms, churches, and school build-
ings at which he was to speak. He had had some forewarning about
these matters while still confined in London, and it was then
with the steady stream of people coming and going that he had
been readying, if not speeches, at least full notes to discuss with
the audiences he would find in Dundee; notes that would show
his familiarity with the nature of their desires and grievances and
show them, if he could, his capacity to represent them.

My strength came to his service when I had to carry him, or
nearly so, from street levels to his hotel room; up platforms at
the sites of public meetings; up stairs in halls of assembly. My
arms, sometimes, were his legs. The struggle was in his face at
all times, and signs of pain were there often enough. But what
always burned through was the dominance of the man, the "carry"
and the "send" of his personality.

He would simply not allow appendicitis to interfere with an
election.

There is a time when things go against a man and there is no
explaining it, either then or years after. I cannot offer any reason
for the coldness that Mr. Churchill there experienced. It mystified
his aides. Members from the Liberal party were dejected.

Had he been too popular too long? Was there an unaccountable
surfeit of him, in the headlines, on people's lips? Or was there an
equally unaccountable reversal of reason and tradition (and an
upending of economic sense, Dundee being a Scotch whisky city)
in sending Scrymgeour to London to persuade Englishmen every-
where to stop using spirits? It is possible that he was too often,
perforce, carried to stages in chairs. A few times even weeks after
the surgery, he had to be transported by stretcher. He looked very
bad, and though he spoke well, it" was plain to all that he could
only endure a few moments at a time. And hecklers this time were
teo much for him. He just wasn't up to them. Or to the fun of it

Those who have had appendicitis may know the exact degree
of discomfort he had to carry. I never had this but it seemed that,
though there were no signs his pain was unbearable, it was nearly
continuous and fatigue and sudden movement made it worse.

People shouted from the back of halls: "Stand up, Winston!"
He would try to rise, and half do so, then slump down again, and

ASSIGNMENT: CHUIICHILL 49

half smile. It was not a show. It was not a tragedy. It was bleakly
brave. Nothing ever comes right in this way.

I do in retrospect believe he might have defeated a far more
substantial opponent, if brain had engaged brain, but a platform
of Prohibition was so appalling to think of that no one could sort
out the real from the illusory.

The people themselves didn't seem to know what kind of cam-
paign was going on. An 31 man was struggling with an empty one.
That might sum it up.

Aides and tellers who stood outside the various voting stations
scattered about the city and its environs tried to hide from him
their fear that he would be turned out when the record of the
count came in. It was awful weather. There was no rain but the
days were dark and polar and Dundee is hardly cheerful even
when it would insist so itself.

The pessimistic predictions were all realized. Scrymgeour had
displaced my charge. I also felt the discouragement It all seemed
too much and too packed together.

He served some champagne, not to devil the victor, but to thank
and cheer those who had helped him and who had quietly taken
care of the sad paperwork and endless grinding errands that go
into this phase of public life. He went into a stony sleep of a few
hours, then it was time to lug him to the train again. This time we
did not need a stretcher. It was a good fast ride. I was glad of the
confinement and the enforced immobilization. Later I looked for-
ward to ships and planes for the same reason.

By this time I was becoming used to the schedule with Mr.
Churchill. I had wisely adopted a plan never to think too far
ahead. With Churchill, Ms driving purposes, his swollen agenda,
it was the only way to do. Even members of the Special Branch
of Scotland Yard have a private life, at least the rales in the
Branch recognize time off and the wives of members expect to
see their husbands from time to time.

But with Churchill all this was different. In a practical sense
there was no time off (not in a literal sense), and this seeming
paradox can be cleared up when I say that "no practical time off"
merely meant that there was never any time to myself that I could
count OIL

50 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

I had always loved football, for example, and had myself played
quite a bit of the game, even for a professional club when I thought I
might make a young man's career of it, but it was hard for me to
get to a game with any belief that I'd see it through to the end. I
was too often called away by Mr. Churchill's office. Mr. Churchill
had "not had opportunity to notify you of this plan." Plan? It
might be Cairo, or Dundee. Or a quick speaking trip, or an ac-
cepted invitation to an unguarded country place where my serv-
ices would be needed for the period of his stay.

So it was that although I did have time off, I could never be
sure of it. I might get into some work clothes to dig in my garden,
get part way to the toolshed and be called by the Yard to be at a
certain place without quite enough time to get there, even though
I knew how to get to it Often they were places new to me, and
places new to a Scotland Yard man are few indeed.

There were times when I felt that the impetuosities of Mr.
Churchill hurt his own career, but I grew to know that when
tempted with such judgments it was because I was myself short of
sleep or that I ached somewhere from doing too much. At this time
my arms ached from carrying a heavy man about Scotland where
he'd no right to have sent himself in the first place. I never had
to do this again, though he was dangerously ill more than once
and nearly died in Tunis during World War II. In such times,
after Dundee, he kept sensibly inactive until his normal strength
returned.

I was in no way surprised therefore, when upon beginning to
unwind a bit myself and with two days off in prospect in which he
promised me he would not leave his rooms (with the Yard to sup-
ply me relief), his secretary telephoned that he was leaving at
once for the Mediterranean and I should be ready in a few hours.

It seemed we had just taken care of the Mediterranean! But
I then discovered he was taking his family, that he was going to
the Cote d'Azur, that he had taken a villa there, and the journey
had nothing to do with the Mediterranean's problems.

There followed a five months' holiday in Cannes.

Rest? Yes, somewhat. For me. But for him? I do not believe
great men ever rest I do not believe that they can. His family
had a wonderful time. I felt very close to them all during this

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 51

period, for the pressures of government and daily answerability
were not upon Mm nor upon those around him (government pres-
sures can be felt in the Churchill kitchen soon after they reach
Churchill's desk!). The family's grief over their loss of little Marl-
gold Frances had been somewhat assuaged by time, and the empty
place in their family unit was taken by the arrival of little Mary, a
truly enchanting baby. She was as fully alive and instantly respon-
sive as her father, and guarding her was an additional duty I often
found necessary and to which I assigned myself for a time each
day.

Many people, when they discover I was bodyguard for so long
to a man of such energy and color, have asked me about this period
in Cannes. Did Mr. Churchill gamble? Did he gamble heavily?
Did he have unlimited funds for it? Did he budget himself and stay
within a stated sum of risk money? Did he win or lose? If he
won, what did he do with the money? Was he an habitue or a
"psychic" gambler? What were Ms games? What did Mrs. Chur-
cMU think?

Mr. Churchill most enthusiastically enjoyed gambling while at
Cannes and went to the Casino innumerable times, always playing
one or another of the tables, and preferring chemin-de-fers over
roulette. It has been freely reported that he "lost heavily" and in-
asmuch as I was physically very close to Mm at every one of his
visits to the Monte Carlo gambling tables, I always saw what he
won and what he lost. He lost very often. Everyone wlio gambles
can count on this much at least. And he lost oftener than he won
a not uncommon ratio either. But he lost heavily very seldom,
played his stretches of luck while they were full, and knew when
to leave the games.

He knew this so well that his winnings, while not immense, were
more than enough to pay for the rental of his handsome villa for
the full period of his family's stay in it just over five months.

He loved the color and noise of gambling, the drama of it, and
the challenge of instinct against a blind adversary. The rooms of
Monte Cado disturbed and unsettled me. There was a depravity
in the atmosphere, and though wealth and breeding were from
time to time apparent (European and Oriental royalty too), most
of the gamblers were poor and frightened, and pursued their

52 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

pleasures as if in great pain. There was excitement but little fun,
Churchill being one of the notable exceptions to this. He was by
no means a "born" gambler in the sense of being unable to leave
a game alone; nor in the sense of inveterate. For after Monte
Carlo, I never saw him gamble again. I saw him make and take
bets, but never again formally address himself to a table in the
presence of a croupier. He loved to bet, and did so on any issue,
with any man, all during World War II, on such current excite-
ments as number of German planes shot down in a raid, or num-
ber of Germans taken in a battle, or a date on which a disputed
objective would fall to us. He often loved to bet on the content
of the speech by the next speaker and would jot down his guess.
One time, when he was exchanging his predictions, he wrote, "The
next speech will be innocent of content" and it was agreed with
much laughter that he had won.

Churchill's days were spent in writing, painting, and bathing
(he loved swimming, especially salt-water swimming, beyond all
other delights I am sure), and in visiting people nearby. There
weren't many guests, and this always made my own job lighter:
less strain, less to watch, fewer "targets."

Everywhere one looks along the Cote d'Azur it is peacefully or
excitingly scenic. There is almost a bit too much of its special
kind of beauty to be continuously beautiful. One's eye sought in-
terruptions in it or neutral reliefs from it. Mr. Churchill would
ask for his painting gear a kit that grew more and more bur-
densome and seemed to me to grow heavier perhaps faster than his
skill improved and off he would go to a rock or promontory that
commanded a fine curve of the littoral. There was always the un-
believable contrast of white sand, metallic sky, purple water, red
rocks, and the ever-swaying green of subtropical foliage that lined
the shore. The glare and glitter that came from reflected sun against
the white of the villas and the innumerable shiny toadstools that
were the massed and massive beach umbrellas were too strong to
be directly looked upon. Here he would paint, many hours at a
time, never a word coming out of him, but sometimes great grunts
and wheezes and long sighs, like a locomotive finally giving up in
a roundhouse.

I am a contemplative man, and these hours never bored me.

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 53

And on one occasion, I innocently became drunk on the job,
though to this day I do not believe the Old Man quite knew it.
Perhaps he thought it was sunstroke.

It was near a place called Beaulieu. The Duke of Connaughf s
villa was located here. The Duchess of Marlborough, Winston
Churchill's cousin, had a new house going up (she had recently
married the millionaire Balsan) and she wished Winston's opin-
ion of the work in progress and the site. He had a good opinion of
both and had brought along Ms painting box in the car.

He asked me to take the stuff to a shoulder of the slope that
runs down to the sea at this place. It was hot and we had received
an excellent lunch, an elaborate, outdoor, soporific meal. Mr.
Churchill set up his easel, got out his brashes, arranged the sub-
ject matter of his next picture in his mind, and began to paint
and to hum. I felt an immense sensation of peace, always the
most dangerous of symptoms for men in my work. This was in no
way improved when Mr. Churchill's host, having seen me very
much alone from the porches and terraces of the villa, came to
my spot on a boulder and set down something that I did not at
once notice.

He had left me a large bottle of white wine in an ice bucket, had
said in French it was for my own use while Churchill painted, and
had gone back to the cool of the shade, I, being almost wholly un-
acquainted with wine either as to flavor or efficacy, took an experi-
mental sip to find it uncommonly delicious.

I drowsed and sipped for more than two hours, in fact until
I realized Mr. Churchill was finishing up another "go" with the
Mediterranean. I tried to get up. The sun seemed in the wrong
part of the sky, and the whole stretch of water was aslant. Loose
stones that I couldn't see kept jumping against my feet, and sta-
tionary objects moved away from my grasp as I reached for them.
I had an embarrassing time trying to fold the easel and get every-
thing back into its proper slot and square. I got a great deal of
paint on myself, though I had not done so before. I slid on some
moss and fell and bruised myself. Odd noises, including some
muffled chuggings not heard before, came from Churchill. I be-
lieve he was looking at me sharply, but when I tried to look

54 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

sharply back I could not focus. He left me then and the sound
of a summer swarm went along with him.

He never mentioned it, and I never had white wine again, nor
did I ever again feel the sensation of having the earth rock and
lift. I, of course, had to rock and lift along with it, and trudging
back to the garage with the paintbox, checking my weight against
the sudden shifts of the ground beneath, I made an impression
on the Duchess* servants they can probably still recall.

These days passed happily and uneventfully for me. It is not
so easy to tell how they passed, though, with Mr. Churchill. I am
convinced that his mind is never still; that what will seem some
placid contemplation in some other man is, in him, the most active
and advancing sort of forward meditation. He is always thinking
about something in the round, but also about some specific aspect
of it, and always toward a solution or a crisis. I am certain all his
reflections are dramatic, for all living to him is such. He was in
these quiet days, for example, making a great deal of money.
Everything he wrote he sold. And he began to discover that he
need not be at the mercy of a mere editor or a mere magazine, for
his own writings improved circulation when his name was fea-
tured. He found that you could also get paid for amount. In his
magazine work, where his output through the years has been
enormous and will continue to the very month of his death, he
began insisting upon more money for longer pieces. He began to
suit the amount of what he was going to write for a given editor
to the amount the editor was going to give him. He became one
of the highest paid article writers in the world.

Along with this instinct, he also had several financial wind-
falls. His mother, Lady Randolph, had died and had left him a
small fortune. Another fair sum, with annuity, plus an Irish
castle and innumerable cottages in Ireland, fell to him about
this time, an inheritance from his cousin Lord Vane-Tempest.
Before he ever had a chance to occupy his Irish castle, or even
make a show of taking possession, the Irish got to it and thor-
oughly despoiled it, burning part of it, smashing its fittings, pull-
ing the rest down altogether. Churchill, hearing of this, said
nothing and it was later discovered that he gave the rest of this

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 55

inheritance away to people who had been living nearby or upon the
estate, though he did not know them.

He also, during this period, began writing The World Crisis,
though I did not at that time know the magnitude, or even the
nature, of what he had undertaken.

It was upon my own discovery, months later, that he was well
into this vast history of World War I, that I conceived my own
notion of the fertility of his preoccupations. With me, as with the
average man, such would be simple daydreams. But it is apparent
now that while he would be standing upon the shores of the Medi-
terranean, making all manner of guttural sounds and scowling,
his painting was, in an odd way, an organizing and constraining
focus for the thinking that was going on at the same time and
that bore no relation to the activities of his hand and eye. Neither
suffered, for his paintings are uniformly good, and while there is
more than one opinion of his thinking, there is no disputing that
it was and is earth-moving, spectacular, and very often prophetic.
It has the classic line that contains the massiveness of continuous
and informed thought.

So it was that while much appeared to have been done fast,
almost nothing was. Certainly never a picture. Nor a book. Why
Ms books seemed to surprise his immense readership, when they
did appear, is no secret at all to those who were close to him dur-
ing their composition. We merely knew that Mr. Churchill was
working. And he was working all the time.

Meals seemed little different, and while there was rich laughter
in the man and all those who were to be entertained at Ms table
looked forward to it with pleasure as all those who had just had
the pleasure looked back on it the rest of their lives in agitated
.and delighted remembrance, there was a bit of a scheme to this
too. He liked provocative people around him. He liked to be
buttressed with opinion. He loved argument in the logical style
but he loved it too, in the ready invention of conversation that
needed to be maintained on muMphasic levels. He loved the
^presence and the company of men who also enjoyed the mental
endurance race this kind of talking exacted from one's inventive-
ness. So luncheons in their way were hours of greater significance
than the passing to and fro of compliments, anecdotes, and

56 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

gaieties given and exchanged. They also fed his mind and taught
him not only the tricks and skills of his adversaries but the weak-
nesses and foibles of his friends as well. Men never felt they weie
being studied by Winston Churchill, yet he never ceased studying
them and he had enough personality to steamroller those he could
not outguess or outthink.

In the last of the happy days we had near Monte Carlo, the jaw
began to set once more, the forehead to pinch and contract, the
periods of dictation to lengthen, and his secretaries to begin look-
ing more and more weary earlier in the day. He was getting ready
to re-enter the lists. He was a man but of a job! And this he could
never stand.

We were suddenly back in England and, before I could get used
to the familiar weather, we were again barnstorming in some of the
roughest elections any Englishman has ever gone through.

I hate election campaigns more than any other single thing in
my work. I always have. Mobs are never predictable, and of course
they are never manageable. And you cannot arrest a mob. Nor
knock it down. Great damage can be inflicted on both candidates
and innocent bystanders and there is little chance to catch those
doing the harm because it is difficult to see it coming. It is not,
for example, like setting up the security to cover the routes of the
King's processional, for in such cases the advance planning is
months in the making and there is protection on every square and
corner, every embrasure, every roof. All traffic stops.

But elections are helter-skelter. You jump from a horrid street
in Soho to a more horrid street right behind the Houses of Parlia-
ment, and you alone with your gun and your very good health are
the law, and such guarantee against missiles or murderers as
there is. I did not mind the danger of these campaigns (Mr. Chur-
chill always looked forward to it and kept hoping exciting things
would explode about him without warning) , but what I did mind
was the possibility of my impotence in its sudden presence; by the
press of people, for example, or by my being thirty feet from a
center of hostility instead of three.

People ask me if Mr. Churchill, in times of danger, was not

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 57

usually armed, and this is my answer: He was when he remem-
bered to carry his weapon. He was an unusually fine shot, with
either rifle or revolver, and later became deadly with some of the
most lethal of the automatic weapons that we were to develop, in-
cluding the Sten. He loved firearms, and I believe loved the sound
of them. He practiced target shooting in the basements of his va-
rious residences, and never refused to "have a shoot" with me
when I felt it was time to check his handling of arms. Being a good
shot is like being a good pianist: one cannot grow rusty and re-
turn suddenly to dependable controls. One can leave his guns
alone for weeks and, by practicing a few hours each day for sev-
eral days, recover all his skills, but he cannot recover them imme-
diately. So while it was all right for Mr. Churchill, in periods when
he was not a protected public servant in high office, to ignore this
somewhat realistic side of survival, I never recommended it,
knowing these periods would be brief.

Acquaintances of mine in the military, some of the great marks-
men of England, often go to the shooting butts without so much as
a target-load, and merely sight the targets, from all the shooting
positions, for hours at a time, for the more perfect command of
muscular composure and the Spartan demands upon the eye.
Violinists learn lightness of bow by bowing for hours without the
bow quite coming into contact with the strings. I have seen my
son do this many times. So it goes with the control of our bodies
whether we are pianists, acrobats, or professionals with the bow
and arrow. We must first of all become animals again. It was
very natural for Mr. Churchill, at least in the realm of contest
with his fellows, whether a "friendly" election that landed scores in
hospitals or a global war.

Stanley Baldwin had succeeded to the Prime Ministership of
Great Britain upon the illness and death of Bonar Law. Mr.
Churchill put up his name for candidacy at West Leicester, and
in a bruising and confused campaign, he was defeated by Pethick-
Lawrence, a Labor man, in a drab industrial town. But the fight*
ing look stayed with him and I knew he would nm again as soon
as something resembling a fair gamble presented itself. Churchill
all this time, except when actively campaigning, was writing at a
prodigious rate six or seven hours a day and he completed

58 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

what later appeared as the second volume of his four-volume
study of World War I during the ebbtide between his defeat at
West Leicester and his next sortie.

I shan't soon forget those days and nights. The political tem-
peratures and the immediate situation confronting him at that time
would be of little interest to recall in any detail, even for English
readership. But to make it clear to readers overseas, it will be
enough to say that Mr. Churchill, who was always much easier to
offend than to rout, had been so offended and so little routed by
his defeat at the hands of Labor, in the person of Pethick-Law-
rence, that he turned around, renouncing Liberalism as he did so,
and proclaimed himself the leader of a new party to be called the
"Constitutionalists.'* Here he had no intraparty distractions for he
was the only member the party had!

Friends pointed this out and suggested he needed a constitu-
ency from which to make his new bid for Parliament. They sug-
gested Westminster, not at all what Americans envision when they
hear this word, and in some ways the most contradictory nest of
contrasted purlieus that London holds. It is in the center of Lon-
don, of course, and contains the Abbey and the Houses of Parlia-
ment. But it also contains some of the city's vilest slums. A clash
between sidewalk disorderliness and civic and architectural pom-
posity.

Mr. Churchill had several opponents. One was a Captain Otho
Nicholson. Another was Fenner Brockway, a Socialist of little
consequence; and there was Scott Duckers, a Radical of no more.

His headquarters, a terrible assignment to me, was the London
residence of one of England's richest men, James Rankin. Society
stamped all over the premises, each running Mr. Churchill's cam-
paign in his (and as it developed, more and more, in her) way,
for titled ladies, women^of great wealth, and aimless and retired
but self-styled zealots flocked to this pile of inefficiency. I remem-
ber Lady Wodehouse, and Lady Blandford, and Lady Bess-
borough, and Lady Harmsworth. But the nearness of the slums
and the dedication of party workers seemed to bring an infusion
of ape blood to this particular set-to, and I lost over twenty pounds
before it was over.

One of Churchill's political meetings was mobbed and then

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 59

routed. Knaves from Soho battered down platforms, brass
knuckles appeared, and clubs and staves and modern improvisa-
tions of Little John's single stick. And thugs! I even saw many I
knew by sight, from previous overflows of ill feeling for one cause
or another, or for money they wanted but didn't own. And se-
cured anyhow. Crooks.

Churchill's political platform was more durable than those
from which he spoke, but here again he attracted support that
sometimes won him more trouble than votes. Because he was out
to liquidate socialism, fascism and communism, he immediately
attracted attacks from the strong-armed mobsters from those very
elements. For the most part, they were followers of Commander
Oliver Locker-Lampson, England's most colorful hater of com-
munism in all its forms. Prizefighters, hearing that the big rich
house on Victoria Street was owned by quite a sport, attended
Churchill meetings and roughed up anybody that raised a voice
against him. Locker-Lampson had recruited them, seeing they
would be needed. Lord Darling, the more or less famous croquet
expert, formed a group of protectors to supplement Locker-
Lampson. They brought their mallets. They stood guard for Win-
ston ready to whack anyone trying to rush the stages or the
stands. But many times mobs of Communist hooligans just went
right over the lines and broke up meetings.

Lord Balfour supported Churchill. So did Leopold S. Amery,
Ms Harrow schoolmate. This helped. So did the Countess of Botts-
ley, who rushed about the slums with pails of signboard mucilage
and a brush on a stick, pasting up life-sized pictures of the Church-
ill children, gathered at mother's knee and over their smiling
innocence VOTE FOR DADDY. Lord Darling became more involved,
put aside his mallet and spoke. Even the Duke of Marlborough
went about, tapping on sagging doors with a gold-headed stick.

Hecklers would appear in halls, and other hecklers would rise
and begin clubbing them. Locker-Lampson was of the greatest
physical comfort to us aH Churchill hated to have heckling inter-
fered with because he was so good at giving it back. On one occasion
he got a big laugh when a heckler became so entangled in his
attempted abuse that he could only splutter and before the ex-
pletives could be arranged for delivery, Churchill had flung at him:

60 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

"My friend should not develop more indignation than he can con-
tain!" And the same evening (Mr. Churchill was cultivating a not
very successful mustache at this time and quickly abandoned it), a
shrill and striking woman rose and shouted, "I don't like your
ideas or your mustache!" To which Winston had this to send
back: "Madame, pray do not distress yourself. You are un-
likely to come into contact with either one."

In such times, I always managed to find a small box, or plank, or
stone which would give me another few inches of height advantage.
Being over six feet already gave me some in most groups, but this
added amount provided the sweep of the crowd to my eye at
every turn of the head, and I am sure this small advantage was
of great protection that very night. Sir Philip Sassoon, grand-
son of the more famous Sassoon against whose dock in Bombay
Churchill had torn his shoulder so painfully many years before,
received severe cuts about the face, and Locker-Lampson, whose
militant disregard for party manners of any kind was a continuous
embarrassment and a continuous protection to Churchill many
nights in a row, was painfully beaten after having been knocked
down. But he was his own charge and he had his own mob to
protect him. He was the most seasoned warrior of them all, whose
combat record even then included battlefields as far apart as Lap-
land and Persia. And like Churchill he was of American extrac-
tion on his mother's side.

Churchill had just silenced the woman and the crowd was mo-
mentarily slaked when a wedge of true ruffians, two of whom were
anarchists known to me from my earliest days at the Yard, began
banging people right and left on their way to the platform. We
were outdoors, just finishing the meeting near Long Acre. I could
see our campaign car and its driver. I shouted to Winston to
leave the platform and follow me to the car. I pulled out a trun-
cheon and labored a way through for us Churchill right behind,
then his brother Major John Churchill, his gay redheaded friend
from North Paddington, Brendan Bracken, and another Special
Branch man convoying at the side and rear. We bowled over peo-
ple all the way, piled into the car, and drove away. Our destination
was King Street, Covent Garden, for another meeting. The mob
swarmed about, chasing us as we drove off.

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 61

Of a sudden I shouted at the driver, as we made a sharp turn,
and grabbed the wheel trying to correct the route, but I was too
late. And he cursed my interference, for he felt the tension equally
as we did. But I knew this section Hke my own room, and he was
driving us right into a dead end!

The mob swarmed in upon us and engulfed us there. I sprang
to the ranningboard, and knocked down so many who tried to
manhandle the occupants of the car that I grew tired. Working
away at the fringes of the crowd were hundreds of young Churchill
supporters. Their sallies and line penetrations finally began to
help us and the two ChurchiJls and Bracken, who were at the fore-
front of the melee, helped to hold off the crowd till the driver could
find room to turn and maneuver the car. There was a final spurt
of action against the huge Brendan Bracken; Ms arms went up
and down, striking. Then he fell, stabbed to the bone hi hip and
thigh.

Ambulances were sent for to pick up the injured. And of course
to take Bracken.

We never caught Brendan Bracken's assailant. Street brawls
are in some ways the most vicious and the most dangerous sorts
of attack that public figures can encounter, for there is no isolat-
ing the assailant as such. Spur of the moment ferocity can be
generated right there, even boiling up in a man who had no such
intent half a minute before. I much prefer the armed man, lurking.
Him I can take. We have a number of methods. In fact, all the
men in Scotland Yard's Special Branch must know how to disarm
two armed men, the police officer himself being quite weaponless.

Some of the younger men who were supporting Mr. Churchill's
party now began to outnumber those who had struck physical
blows and who, having done so, had retreated. And the younger
men were beating open a path of retreat for our automobile.
There was still much screaming in the air, and a few missiles, and
the inevitable happy squealing of some crone leaning out from the
safety of her lodgings, enjoying the excitement without knowing
its cause.

I was shortly to receive a most blinding blow in the jaw myself.
After getting Bracken away, the Churchill brothers, another
Special Branch man, myself and the wayward driver headed for a

62 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

small hall near the Berwick Street Market This is a very unre-
fined section, no better than the one we'd left, and Winston went
straight to the platform and right to work on the gathering that
was already waiting there.

He was of course most solicitous about Ms friend who'd taken
such deep wounds in the leg, but as for himself there was no hint
of distress. The incident had not been enough to raffle his com-
posure. He made a fine speech.

A young man of about my height and build attempted to brush
right by me, with a quick and half-whispered sentence about a
message for Churchill. I merely put my arm out so he could not
pass me. "Sorry. You mayn't pass here."

He smiled and seemed to retreat. In fact he did draw back
three or four feet. My eyes were sweeping the crowd again and in
a second or two returned to those in my immediate presence.
Here once more was my friend.

His fist hit me a jarring blow right on the jawbone, rocking
me back. I did not go down, nor lose sensibility, but I staggered
under the blow, for the man was strong and his full shoulder and
torso came on through with the punch. It was almost classically
delivered, I must say in fairness to him, whoever he was.

Perhaps because of some of the excessive enthusiasm my
charges had already been exposed to, I put a few more pounds
behind the counterpunch than were needed. Before the young man
went down, he went up about two feet and a fine "We-e-e-e-e-
a-a-a-aw!" came out of him. He crashed back into a lamppost,
and a uniformed constable who knew me rushed to the scene,
bent over this semiconscious zealot, and then took him off to
interrogation. He stumbled wearily down this dingy street, hold-
ing both hands to his face. I had a bit of a swelling myself, and a
pair of green-yellow eyes for some days, where the inflammation
seemed to take root.

There was an all-night torch and klaxon procession, quite
hideous in its din and, it seemed to me, quite uncivilized in its
purpose. Certainly in its method, for we were trying to protect
the life of a man who was seeking a perfectly legitimate seat in
the Mother of Parliaments in the oldest democracy in the Western
world. Therefore the sound of whistles, of blasphemy, the smell

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 63

of powder and of sweat, the roaring, and the flashes of maroon
in the night sky all merged into a satanic incongruity that belongs
to other people certainly not to mine.

Our dedicated driver, his hat gone forever and his goggles too
and Ms windshield smashed to powder, somehow managed to get
us to the front part of Caxton Hall. Electioneering was all over.
This is where the count comes in. There were rumors that it was
the tightest race ever to occur in Westminster. I could believe it.
I had the feeling, even at the start, that though Nicholson was
entrenched here the enthusiasm was for Winston. I had the feel-
ing that in a mad melee like the one we had been in (days of it!),
my charge would win and obliterate the real agony he had sustained
in Dundee not so long before. That campaign, with the physical
pain that was such a part of it, had been such a heedless thing! No
place to set controls.

And somewhat the same sort of thing here too, except that
Churchill the fighter was in this one, not Churchill the casualty.
And he'd rocked the audiences with fast sallies many a time and
for many days running loving the comeback and the insult, and
giving one vulgarity for another, his own just a bit richer a bit
more proconsular, as it were. They'd liked it. So I felt

Waiting in Caxton was quite as much agony for me in its hours
of suspense as the longer ordeal of Dundee. Somehow Churchill
didn't mind losing at West Leicester and treated it about as he
might if he dropped a sandwich at an outdoor tea party.

Waiting upon destiny at Caxton, Churchill won my inner sym-
pathies all over again. The man was still tired out and in general
appearance far from prepossessing, for he had been rolled about
by the mob a good bit and the King Street scars and the small
knobs and bruises of this dirty fighting had marked him a bit.

I was close to him constantly, though he kept bobbing about
like a cricket before a scythe. And I was most pleased when two
men rushed to him and began pounding Ms back, pumping his arm
up and down, and shaking him by both shoulders in a most dis-
orderly and un-English f asMon, but of course with the unmistak-
able meaning that Churchill was again in Parliament.

Nicholson's officials rushed about with a distracted and abused
look, as if their pensions had been annulled. They demanded re-

64 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

counts. They got them at once. These recounts, in constituencies
like Westminster, do not take long even though the counting is
band counting. But it seems long. And though I was desperately
anxious that this time it come out right for Winston, I was close
to physical collapse myself, and wished only for rest, the luxury
of one undisturbed supper, and ten hours of sleeping that noth-
ing would interrupt.

Unbelievably the recount handed the victory back to Otho
Nicholson. And this meant some more, and possibly premature,
celebrating all over again. I now had to remain standing to stay
awake, though Caxton Hall was so boiling with excitement a wild
bull in its midst would have been unnoticed.

Unbearably, Winston Churchill lost his third election in a row.
He lost by forty-three ballots! Nearly seventeen thousand were
cast!

I have taken American readers to these unfamiliar election
campaigns in England primarily to show the quality of Mr.
Churchill's stoicism. When it was my duty to pick him up and
take him along home (he was nearly dead of fatigue) , I felt far
more paternal than custodial and I did not trust the level of my
own voice to say a simple "I'm sorry, sir," for my sorrow was
very deep. Seeing him refuse even a show of disappointment on
the outcome of it all merely made it worse. Dundee was indeed
bitter, but it was endurable because it was inexplicable. And it
was also a first reversal. Westminster was different. Westminster
had been riotous, with the clash and clangor of steel and mace,
the clamor of churning millions. Westminster had been a thrill,
enriched with billingsgate, dramatic surprise, and the foreseeable
thrills of a planned and lively escapade. It should have come out
right. And it just missed.

Could you tell by looking at the man? I believe Mrs. Churchill
could tell; I could not.

At his door, after a silent ride home late at night and with a
light rain coming down, I stood quietly. I suppose there was some
sort of sickening smile, rather mummified by now, on my face.
His own face was serene. Some thought of his was trying to
mutter itself into articulation but it was still well inside him.
We were both bruised, myself rather comically so. I told him I

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 65

was sorry. I said it quickly without thought, so there'd be no in-
flection to it. He thanked me in the same way, looking right into
me. Then he looked beyond, in the direction of the Parliament
buildings, and he saluted them with a long wave.

"You know, Thompson, they really can't run that thing with-
out me. I've lost again, so nobody will be thinking to shoot me
tonight. We'll rest tonight. I may try Epping."

I drove away. I did not even think of what he meant. I had been
punched in the jaw but he had been struck in the heart, so it
seemed. He had lost three times. Most men would seek other
work!

The Yard did not order me back until late the following after-
noon. There was a little identifying to do of some of those held
over for the electioneering fracas, but after this was disposed of,
I had a chance to read the newspapers without fear of sudden
bells, or the interruptions that the very opening of a door usually
mean. Yes, it was of course true that Winston had lost a race that
was historically close but everywhere one looked irrespective of
what party a newspaper correspondent belonged to the man
Churchill was more popular than ever. "Giddy moral victory,"
one wrote. Well, he'd take his breakfast with less than the usual
glower, and that would please Mrs. Churchill as well as the
domestic staff.

I thought of another thing: What had Winston Churchill ac-
complished in the course of these mortifying raids into back
districts? What had he gained in public stature? He had gained
something in these two years that was to make the man unbreak-
able. That was one thing. And he had been quietly and diligently
laboring on The World Crisis, the four-volume history of World
War I.

In the course of a very few weeks things happened almost too
swiftly to be properly digested, to be sufficiently savored. There
was a rash of victories. First off, Eppiag did return Qiurchill in a
walkaway victory, Ms Constitutional Party philosophies having
acted as a stimulant to the Conservatives. E Churchill wasn't pro-
Conservative* he was surely anti-Socialist. And Ramsay Mac-

66 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

Donald ("The Boneless Wonder" what a cruel appellation!)
evaporated.

Before Churchill had quite got used to his own seat, Stanley
Baldwin was back in the big job again. The first thing he did,
certainly the best thing he ever did, was to name Winston Churchill
Chancellor of the Exchequer.

A moment before, all those who were close to him and working
hard in their various ways for him and for his beliefs were trying
to swallow the lump in their throats for the sequence of political
deprivations he'd been through; for the pain he'd had; the courage
shown; the losses taken without a grimace. Now, there was no
time to celebrate his easy victory at Epping till a greater celebra-
tion was called for when he was granted the seals of office of the
second most responsible job in the British Empire. The Chancel-
lorship of the Exchequer is the traditional step next behind the
Prime MinistersMp.

I was well caught up on sleep before these larger responsibilities
fell upon Mr. Churchill and so the acclimatization of myself was
a most pleasant experience to go through.

There is a great deal of pomp and even much more traditional
ritual that is observed in the changing of governments and I shall
not detail it for American readers. The accession of a Prime
Minister is an occasion for a good deal of dignified and slow-
moving ceremonial, not of course in any way comparable to the
elaborate and almost oriental pageantry and heraldic observance
of a coronation (familiar now to Americans through motion pic-
tures and television), but it does, as many English customs, take
quite a long time. I did not mind the gradualness of the process
by which Winston Churchill became the Prime Minister's right
bower.

What set things in motion was a telephone call to Mr. Churchill
in his home in Westerham. King George V had asked Stanley Bald-
win to form a new government, for the second time.

The motor ride to Conservative Central Office headquarters
was a happy and expectant one, Mr. Churchill of course knowing
that one of the important Cabinet posts was to be offered Mm.
Palace Chambers, the place was called. Mr. Churchill hummed
all the way. He sounded like a mass of insects. His humming was

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 67

the most astonishing thing for it was impossible to tell what was
intended, as to the nature of the noise itself or what the tune was,
if he really meant to be humming a tune at alL It seemed to force
itself from the closed lips and set jaw we know so well, and also
to be coming out of the nostrils. Churchill's humming is a bleak,
unsettling thing.

We pulled up before Palace Chambers and Mr. Churchill went
inside. It was a little before eleven in the morning. He was gone
for more than two hours.

I began to speculate a bit on my own life, how it would vary
not so much in hours as in geography if he were to get this job
or that one, and the closeness with which he had skirted the
Chancellorship of the Exchequer under David Lloyd George kept
this one office suspended before my own mind.

There would be an interesting familiarity about being Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer, for Churchill's own father, Lord Ran-
dolph, had had that very post when he was only thirty-six. He'd
resigned the office three times, Lord Salisbury, the Prime Minister
at that time (1886), finally accepting the third resignation.
Churchill's father Randolph is one of England's most complex
and wistful characters and badly neglected by today's commen-
tators.

In any case, if Winston were to succeed to the post, he was
already outfitted for it from a wardrobe point of view, for Ran-
dolph, upon his resignation in the previous century, had refused
to surrender his robes of office when he quit. He somehow just
wanted the robes, and he took them and kept them. This had
never happened in England's history.

Another father-and-son connection concerned India. Randolph
had been Secretary of State for India (under Gladstone how the
Churchills all hated Gladstone!) after having been an M.P. under
Disraeli (whom they all loved) for four or five years, serving
from Woodstock, the sweet village that is close by the family
estate of Blenheim. All the King's ministers^ great and forgotten,
drifted through Winston's life during his boyhood and early man-
hood, for they were part of his own father's life and circle: John
Morley, Balfour, Chamberlain, Mr. Edward Carson, Asquith,
Lord Rosebery. And Lord Randolph, of amazing appearance (he

68 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

was spare and exophthalmic and he wore handlebar mustaches
that came out well past his bloodless cheeks, then dropped down
nearly to the collarbone) was one of the very'few in England who
would stand up in the House and sass Gladstone to his face. And
loved doing so. Much of his reputation, in fact, was derived from
the sense of Parliamentary eagerness that stood in the atmosphere
whenever the Prime Minister was about to be engaged by the
sickly though sulphurous member from Woodstock. For Winston
Churchill's father was one of the readiest and most eloquent of
living men. He nearly drove Gladstone crazy, and did drive him
out of the Prime Ministership.

Jennie Jerome, Randolph's wife, the fabulous and still discussed
American girl, had no more fear of the breed of English she met,
lived with and immeasurably grew to love than did her bald-
headed and cyclonic husband have for Gladstone.

Randolph's own father, the Duke, found his son impossible,
unpredictable, and far from promising, and one day when he
found Randolph taking off in the most unconventional get-up ever
seen in the county (it included a cooking skillet that was sus-
pended by cord around Randolph's waist), he asked him where
he was going. The Duke was immediately told. Randolph was
"off for South Africa to dig for gold." That is where he went.
Did he actually dig? Yes, indeed. Churchills always bring a dis-
couraging plausibility to their pronounced insanities by returning
with proof of results. Randolph Churchill, to be sure, did not very
much enjoy digging for gold and complained of the arduousness
of it many times in later years, but he dug up $35,000 worth of it.
He used the money to go to Japan and, with the remainder, upon
his return to Blenheim, he bought a string of horses, began breed-
ing them, racing them, and winning race after race. But he rarely
saw his own animals go, and once, after a big win when his
friends sought him, they were to find he was not even in England.
He was in Norway, alone, going through fjords in a canoe.

He died at forty-six, his. work pitiably unfinished. Guedalla
called him the "Peter Pan of British politics."

The shove and pressure of memories of this man and his family,
their surpassing energy, and their determination to see, and do,

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 69

and be everything all at once and to die burned out or run through,
occupied me for the two hours and better that Winston was inside
Palace Chambers talking with Stanley Baldwin.

When he came out he was bent and beaming. He said one
thing: "We'll have to move from Westerham, Thompson." It
didn't matter to me, of course, desert nomads having far more
peace than I did. But if he had told me where the Churchills were
next to settle, I'd have known the post. Specific addresses go with
many of the Cabinet posts, Ten Downing of course being the best
known British address there is, and Eleven Downing the best
known next to it.

I discovered that I was now working for England's new Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer only by reading it in the newspapers the
next day.

The Churchill household was of course overjoyed, and past
disappointments died out like the din of King Street and the roar-
ing of klaxons in Soho. No one thought of what had passed only
of now and tomorrow.

"Now" included his investiture, and the ancient ceremony of
the "Pricking of the Sheriffs," during which the new Chancellor
wore the robes of Ms father Lord Randolph. Soon after he "kissed
hands," his family moved into the huge place at Eleven Downing
Street. It is, to be sure, old-fashioned but it is friendly, tastefully
decorated, and commodious enough to absorb huge parties with-
out strain and with minimum distress to guests. However, it is not
easy to assume the security responsibility for such a busy man,
especially in a house so large a newcomer needs floor plans to
find his way.

Agleam under a new top hat in an incredible day of sunshine
(April, 1925), I walked with the Qiurchills the new Chancellor,
Mrs. Churchill, Randolph, and Miss Diana from their home to
the House of Commons. It was Winston's first Budget Day, an
event of special significance in England.

Everybody shouts things at Winston Churchill. Bus drivers
stop^ lean from their cabs, and give him advice. Children pluck
Ms sleeve. There is a happy flutter of solicitude on all sides. I
walked slightly behind, and to Ms right, armed of course and quite
proud to be among tMs little company that carried so much mean-

70 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

ing. Winston carried the Budget itself in a dispatch box, some-
what too much of a size to be handled easily in one arm. And
he was under the necessity, often, to raise his topper and acknowl-
edge the enthusiastic hand-clapping that his passing down the
street had started.

"Let me take the box, sir,'* I suggested. He pulled back in some
horror, hugging the cumbersome thing the closer, as if I were sud-
denly proposing to grab the godfather's baby at the moment of
christening.

"No, no! There's but one person to guard this box and it's me!"

What he had was very much and utterly his own. Once, ten
years or more later, when he was heavily engaged with his hands
full of paper details of many kinds, I opened his dispatch box,
which I'd brought from security, and offered it to him open and
he bawled me out roundly in the presence of a multitude of peo-
ple, including military bigwigs. "I open this! I alone. No one else!
Ever!"

He was nervous in his maiden speech. But he looked up into
the gallery, to his beautiful wife and to his children and smiled
lovingly. Their presence seemed to soothe him, or to return him
to the moment, and steer him through it.

And since it was Winston Churchill, there was the inevitable
ingredient of the dramatic. Only the Prime Minister and the Cabinet
knew what Churchill was going to say. And this was to be the
day when England would be told that His Majesty's Government
was to return to the Gold Standard.

The immediate reaction to this (which I took to be the one
that would continue) was tumultuous in its approval. It was a
great day all around for the Churchills.

Alas, great men's great days are hard won and short-lasting.
Right after declaring the return to the Gold Standard all manner
of heckling began, some of it with serious force of argument be-
hind it. The preceding Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Philip
Snowden, a man whose brilliance Winston privately admired to
the fullest degree, was important in all opposition arguments, in
challenges to the Churchill forces as to where new money would
come from and in assembling furious objection to the uses of
some of those sources. One of these sources was to be liquor. Mr.

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 71

Scrymgeour, the unlikely Scotch Prohibitionist who had defeated
Mr. Churchill in Dundee, was of course sitting in the House. The
American-born Lady Astor went after Churchill on the liquor
problem (Scrymgeour did it daily) and on one occasion, when
acknowledging that more money in His Majesty's coffers was his
first concern, Churchill said calmly enough: "It is imperative that
I should refresh the revenue." And, perhaps enjoying the discom-
fort of Lady Astor, whose tongue is not only versatile but sharp,
he produced from the Speaker's stand a bottle of Scotch whisky
and added to his previous sentence: "I do so now," talcing a fine
pull before replacing the bottle.

He stopped his speech in midstream, looked right down at
Lady Astor and told her that she was "noble" but that "I do not
think we are likely to learn much from the liquor legislation of
the United States." The House roared on both sides.

Another time, sitting in the gallery, I was immensely impressed
with a speech by Winston that had come off at his top-level best.
And I was enjoying the comfort of realizing that he had won the
argument He was sitting below, enjoying the same thing, listen-
ing to a harangue from some now-forgotten member of the Op-
position who was taking Winston's logic and Ms character apart,
one bone at a time. It began to bother Churchill who, while the
greatest talker in the world, is also its worst listener, and he began
to indicate his disagreement with what he was listening to by the
most violent and continuous shakings of his large head. Every-
body in the House of Commons saw what Churchill was doing.
The speaker too saw how seriously the House's attention was
being pulled away from himself and disastrously dissipating his
argument. He came to the edge of the platform and looked
rigjit down at Churchill who continued shaking his head. The
speaker aimed his forefinger at Winston and remarked to him, in
a sort of squealing outrage: "I wish to remind Right Honor-
able friend that I am only expressing my own opinion!" And
Churchill, looking up impishly and half-rising, said: "And I wish
to remind the speaker that I am only shaking my own head!"

There could be no more serious business that day.

Philip Snowden has several mentions in the story of his own
life, which came out many years after these tests, of the excite-

72 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

ments that went into them. But I never saw Snowden top Mr.
Churchill. Mr. Snowden, in the mellowness of his later years, saw
himself as a more substantial adversary than I saw him to be
with Churchill in front of him. Snowden was heartbreakingly
crippled toward the end, and even in the days of his greatest
mental and fiscal robustness (it was conceded everywhere that he
was a far better "money man" than Churchill) he walked pain-
fully with two canes. It was hard not to allow one's response to
the Snowden argument to be influenced by the Snowden appear-
ance. And Churchill was far more merciful in his response to the
Snowden heckling than he was to the others. He let the others
have it right on the nose time and time again. He held back on
Snowden.

Old men like to think they were exciting when they were
younger and some of them were, but I do not now remember
Snowden as bringing to the battles of the House of Commons very
much of the sense of impending suspense of it. He brought sense
and facts, but it was Churchill who came in with the show.

Churchill put a tax on horse bets and instantly provoked the
wrath of half of England's women! Many women threatened to
quit betting (this was, of course, before Churchill himself owned
a racehorse) and he picked them right up on this and reminded
them that the Crown would not object to their "increased use-
fulness in their own homes."

However, filings were serious in the economic life of England.
In foreign exchange the English pound was worth only eighteen
shillings, and England's most famous economist, never in agree-
ment with Churchill about what money was, where to get it, what
to do with it, published The Economic Consequences of Mr.
Churchill, in which he balefully predicted a great depression
(which England very soon had) in the export industries. In bitter
sarcasm, John Maynard Keynes logically saw disasters almost
everywhere, and after charging Churchill with having sold out
England to the bankers, ran through a list of melancholy proph-
ecies that read in part: "To begin with, there will be a great de-
pression. This in itself will be helpful since it will produce an
atmosphere favorable to the reduction of wages. The cost of living

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 73

wiH fall somewhat This will be helpful too because it will give
you (Churchill) a good argument in favor of reducing wages."

And in the coal industry, this very thing happened. Churchill
countered that the government's return to the Gold Standard had
no more to do with conditions in England's mines than "the
Gulf Stream."

It was just as hard for a practical scholar like Keynes to argue
with Churchill as it was for Snowden. Snowden once went after
Churchill for a recommended abandonment of Free Trade prin-
ciples and challenged him for this change in view and position.
"There is nothing wrong in change," the incumbent Chancellor
told the ex-Chancellor, "if it is in the right direction," In his im-
provisation of saving diversionary tactics, Churchill was as re-
sourceful as Lloyd George, but with Winston, though it was never
so acrobatic, it was even more impressive somehow because it
sounded so dynastic, so imperial. There was a squirrel quality
about Lloyd George but about Churchill there was something
Ciceronian, something Roman.

One night after Churchill and his family were all locked up and
I had checked all the fifty-six security points in their enormous
house, Scotland Yard notified me that some extra men were to be
assigned to the Churchill family and to all of Mr. Churchill's
movements, public and private. Only specified visitors to Eleven
Downing Street would be allowed inside, and they only with the
proper passes. I asked what accounted for this sudden tightening
of protection and was immediately told that the miners* walkout
was taking place, during the night shift, that very nigjit, and that
this action would be followed at once by the General Strike.

In England there has never been a time like this was, before
or since.

It created an overwhelming depression of spirit One could see
it in people's faces. However, Englishmen seem to go right on
being Englishmen, and if they have one virtue that is ascendant
over others, it is their ability to endure.

I lived in Sydenham. I did aE my commuting on a motorcycle,
frequently picking up other members of the Scotland Yard force
who were going my way. I had a very clear idea about what the
General Strike would do to the city of London. There were no

74 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

trams, busses, trains, or undergrounds. Miles away from the city,
suburban streets and village lanes were choked with people try-
ing to get to work, waiting on the mercy of anyone who had a
conveyance, no matter what.

In a matter of seconds I had three young men in my sidecar and
later picked up a fourth who sat behind me as a pillion rider. They
tried to pay me. I refused. Later when I cleaned the sidecar I found a
quantity of silver coins that had been surreptitiously dropped en
route; hundreds of them for the hundreds of lifts I'd given during
the Strike. Englishmen hate to owe anything.

I am not up to describing the confusion the General Strike
brought to the Treasury, But since Winston loves confusion if he
can take charge of it and since he missed his morning newspapers
more than he missed his food, he added the problem of getting
news to England to a list already too long. He became an editor.
That he had never run a newspaper before made no difference to
Mm.

All during the General Strike, because of Mr. Churchill's deter-
mination to run everything, I got to bed at four o'clock in the
morning. Never once would he leave Ms newspaper before 2:30
A.M. and he rose before seven. Once I went sound asleep while
standing up, leaning against a doorjamb, just listening to the
sound of those damn presses, and toppled over with great em-
barrassment into a pile of paperboxes.

The General Strike was the most awful upheaval of her own
doing to scourge England since her own Civil War and I do hon-
estly believe Winston Churchill enjoyed every single minute of it!

What brought Churchill's British Gazette into being was simple
enough. None of the newspaper workers wanted to strike but did
because they were afraid to disobey their unions. Although all of
the newspaper owners and editors very much wanted to send jout
the day's news to England and repeatedly met for the purpose of
coming to a working agreement that would pool their manpower
and bring to one paper some sort of consolidated British view on
things in general, the union leaders prevailed as to the workers.
And they struck. The newspaper owners and editors could not
agree to disregard, even for a time, their political leanings.

It was the militantly independent editor of the Morning Post,

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 75

Gwynne, who wrote the Prime Minister and, strike or no strike,
offered the ML physical facilities of the Post if the government
wanted to make use of them.

That was the actual moment when Stanley Baldwin sent for
Churchill and they discussed how to use what they had been
offered.

Mr. Churchill didn't want to hear about the problems. He just
wanted to run the newspaper. In no time we were off to the
building of the Morning Post. On my very first sight of the struc-
ture, it was apparent it was a worse security risk than a county
bazaar. One could enter anywhere without a pass, without chal-
lenge, and carry anything whatever into the numerous dark floors.
I cautioned Mr. Churchill about this. I cautioned him four times.
He merely thought I was cross and sleepy, which was true, and
went ahead singing abominable melodies through Ms nose.

Churchill first visited the presses, then met the staff, then went
to the editor's office. The full staff of the Post was on hand, very
proud to be working for such a man under such conditions. He
went through the place very much as he went through His Maj-
esty's battleships.

Everyone began excitedly to do his job; to do more than his
job. They planned to run record editions from the start. Deliveries?
Already Mr. Churchill was organizing an emergency fleet of auto-
mobiles. They were instructed to pick up their bundles and dump
them at the doors of dealers individual subscribers and buyers
being obliged to come to these shops to get thek own copy. Local
distributions would have to take care of themselves.

But England herself was cross and dangerous, not ready for a
long siege, not wanting one, and the unions far from equal to
supporting their own membership with anything but the briefest
tussle with the government I knew there would be acts of violence.

Churchill's first frustration came a few minutes after he had
taken over. The telephone rang. I stood guard in the doorway (we
had immediately instituted a system of passes) ; aE the other tele-
phones were busy. I picked up the one that was unattended. It
was the union informing the office that the union would not allow
the Post personnel to work for the government

I told Churchill. He whirled around, getting his arms up and

76 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

his chin down and called Beaverbrook. Presently Beaverbrook's
night superintendent from the Daily Express appeared (I believe
his name was Sydney Long). This man could not be touched by
union control and sat down by himself and all alone played the
linotype machine like an organ while Churchill stood at his shoul-
der. It was only two pages but it was a start and Churchill grabbed
the first one out of the maw of the machine and ran hawking it
through the house. He was hard to keep up with. He enjoyed these
moments. I did not

People say Churchill was and is a master of detail. This is not
true. He is impatient and even contemptuous of it. But he never
misses an element in the continuity of function. Here were fine
examples days crammed with them of this unique skill at work
on a hard and practical matter. What did he do? He had called
the Automobile Association to lug the papers to their consumers.
He finally agreed that we might expect sudden flashes of sabotage
and though he seemed to care very little who might get hit on the
head, he surely wanted nothing to happen to the machinery in the
plant. For standby crews of expert machinists, he did what few
other men would think to do: he called a submarine base and
asked for their best mechanics and in a few hours we had an in-
teresting, interested group of experts from Davenport, ready to
tackle a job new to them. The few workers who had defied the
unions were so overworked they were wearing out. Churchill
called trade schools, even universities (where he thought students
might be studying the printing arts in various practical ways)
and he was quite right about this. We had a lot of very well-
educated men running all manner of toys all over the building.

He would work all day in the Treasury (thirty or more phone
calls to the Gazette being average), then jump into the Treasury
car and we'd whirl over to take the day's pulse.

And it was indeed going up. This was not before the days of
the wireless, to be sure (1926), but it was before England as a
nation was sitting at home each night listening at six o'clock. So
they devoured Churchill's paper. He could have printed any-
thing.

I called the Yard and said we were insufficiently secure. While
I was on the telephone, I could hear windows being smashed.

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 77

Employees, plus many luckless passersby, were getting hit on the
head and beaten about the body. And there was a good deal of
stone-hurling.

Police reinforcements began appearing in comforting numbers
and occupying strategic spots. Knowing Churchill, I thought it
would not be long before elements of the Irish guard appeared
and they presently and accommodatingly came over. The Irish
might have hated Churchill in their own way, but they could not
hate him here where they could see him and hear him.

Churchill was always unceremonious about his departures. He
would just be gone. Now he was gone. I chased down the dirty
floors and hallways, overtaking him on his way to the machine
room. There were a lot of beer mugs on the floor. Winston peered
into them. They were all empty. He inquired what this meant and
found that beer drinking, typesetting, and press-running were oc-
cupations that went together. He was told the men had enough
beer. He didn't believe it. One of his long-remembered sentences
rolled out of him then as he stood in the middle of a cluster of
sweating workers in dungarees.

"Nonsense! There is no such thing as enough beer!" How they
cheered! He quietly saw to it that there was an unending supply
during the remainder of the Strike.

In a few days his newspaper had become world-famous. And
in a few days it grew from two sheets (our first edition was a
"folio" and by now almost as rare as Shakespeare's) to eight. In
circulation the rise was meteoric. We grew from roughly a few
thousand to a record runoff of 2,209,000. Beric Holt, an official
of the Posfs permanent staff, was a steadying influence on Church-
ill's exhilaration all during this newspaper crisis. Holt was en-
thusiastic but he also knew how to do everything, so the actual
chores of assembly and distribution (of a newspaper with noth-
ing but pro-government editorials that the public had to take, no
matter what it thought of the government) were part of his daily
exercise. Churchill energized. Holt steered.

One morning Churchill called up the British Navy. He always
enjoyed an excuse for doing this. We had such an involved se-
curity situation by this time that Churchill felt nothing less than a
fleet admiral should supervise it. So he appointed Admiral Hall

78 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

to this strange assignment and in no time he was on the job, join-
ing the rest of us and finding some sort of excitement in this land-
locked adventure.

Though none of the other London newspaper offices were run-
ning, they were all open and staffed. It occurred to Churchill
that they could reprint or photostat what he was creating from his
own corner of Fleet Street. In this way, three other famous dailies
the Daily Mirror, Daily Mail, and Daily Express appeared.
They were single-sheet editions, to be sure, but their banners were
on the newsstands and in the agents' windows and counters again.

Socialists in the House of Commons (and Churchill of course
went each day to the House, for at least an hour, often three or
four) went after him repeatedly, not being able to sit still while
the government was enjoying such an unprecedented editorial
monopoly with unwarranted immunity for it. It was just too much
luck, they felt Churchill made the most of it.

When the Socialists rose in fury against him in the House of
Commons (and wasn't it odd that the Chancellor of the Exche-
quer should be publicly scolded by Socialists for running a news-
paper?) for being so biased in so many of the expressed views of
this organ, he shot right back at them:

"The State cannot be impartial as between itself and that sec-
tion of its subjects with whom it is contending."

This sentence seemed somehow very much like the sentence with
which he so effectively silenced Philip Snowden, "There is nothing
the matter with change, if it is in the right direction." Boiled down,
what he'd said to Snowden was question-begging of the worst
sort. And here, to the Socialists whom he loved to rag and lacerate,
he'd done it again for does it not mean, "How can you expect us
to be impartial when our office necessitates our bias?" Or close to
it? This threw a confusion into them.

In retaliation the pro-strike agitators threw something more
substantial than confusion in the presses one morning. Mr.
Churchill and members of his staff were touring the machinery
room. Suddenly there was an unearthly metallic screaming and a
great rhythmic thumping. The floor shook tip and down. Great
whines and whinnies came out of the presses and their supporting
frames shook in agony.

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 79

Into the most sensitive part of the mechanism a knowing per-
son had thrown a small steel bar. The results were ruinous.

Winston lighted a cigar and regarded the dying giant He re-
alized that only the machine's designers and builders (it was a
Hoe press) who knew every rod and connection in her could re-
pair the damage in time to meet the next edition. He realized,
also, that these men were on strike, as was the whole nation.

What should he do? When England is in doubt, it calls for
Churchill. When Churchill is in doubt, he calls the Navy. He
asked his admiral to come down.

"Can this be fixed at once by the Royal Navy?" he asked
Admiral Hall, daring him to say no.

The Admiral of course said yes, it could, and called for a land
convoy. Then he phoned the Chatham Dockyard, describing what
was on its way to their machine shops. We stood by while the
mangled unit of the machinery was isolated from the body of the
main assembly, hoisted by block-and-tackle, and set in a truck.

A whole fleet of cars carried this to the seaside at the Chatham
yards, with cars loaded with police officers riding before and behind
the critical cargo itself. The "convoy" was under civilian command
of Beric Holt who told me kter he was glad not only for the time
off but for the protection of the extra police. The poor fellow had
been cruelly knocked about the day before by the mob in front
of the Morning Post building when he had rushed to the rescue of
his colleague Robert Gray, at that moment being manhandled by
eight or nine men. Holt had laid about with an iron stick until he
went down, and the police had finally pulled these two from the
melee.

The same afternoon the machinery came back from the Royal
Navy all shined up, wrapped in bunting and with a Union Jack
sticking out of her top! And the edition appeared as if nothing
had happened!

Churchill was criticized again in the House over Hie continued
attitude of the Gazette's editorials. One could see his answer
readying itself even though one was too far away to hear the
premonitory growling. The Opposition had not cared for Mr.
Churchill's assumption that the State and the Baldwin govern-
ment were the same tMn& or even remotely so. The Opposition

80 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

of course insisted that the striking workers represented the true
nature, and the majority makeup, of the State. When the petti-
fogging got to the breaking point, Churchill rose and lashed out
with a stinging statement one of his briefest that was copied at
once everywhere. It was not answered by the Opposition, and I
felt it was the psychological instant at which the General Strike
was broken. He said: "I decline utterly to be impartial as between
the fire brigade and the fire!"

Sensing Ms advantage here, Churchill made a hurried call on
Stanley Baldwin, sat up late that night writing in the editor's office,
and the next morning over the signature of the Prime Minister
the following appeared on the front page of the Gazette in the
largest type the paper had: "Every man who does his duty by the
country and returns to work will be protected by the State from
loss of trade union benefits or pension. His Majesty's Govern-
ment will take whatever steps are necessary in Parliament or
otherwise for this purpose/'

The General Strike ended soon after this edition. There was a
good deal of quiet celebrating in the offices of the Morning Post,
whose plant and whose proprietors had made possible the physical
assembly of the British Gazette.

Winston, said goodbye to all, raised a toast, and informed me
hurriedly that I would have to stay on a few more hours. He was
taMng a large party to the theatre.

I hate these assignments more than almost any other because
of the tempting distraction of the show itself and because of the
deceptiveness of theatre crowds. This is very different from cinema
shows where anonymity is more likely not to be penetrated, and
our training in Scotland Yard, later picked up by air forces all
over the world, had long ago sent us ahead of our charges so we
would be perfectly accustomed to the dark and thereby better
able to protect the man or woman we were paid to keep in sight.

When, however, you are bodyguard to an important man, who
is making a spectacular and well-advertised appearance in a
famous theatre at a show that is a smash, bodyguards have a
poor time. The target is lighted up.

The show was Lady Be Good. It was at the old Empire Theatre
on Leicester Square. And its stars were Fred and Adele Astaire.

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 81

No pair of performers from America's shores has ever so cap-
tivated a British audience as these two did, (This was when Lord
Cavendish, who later married Miss Astaire, first met her.) As to
Adele Astaire herself, I do not think that even the happy excite-
ment over Mary Martin, many years later and in a quite different
show, was any stronger or more spontaneous. In any case, both
these American girls were taken to the hearts of Londoners, still
are and will always be talked about lovingly by theatre-goers.

In such times, I never have a seat and I move about as invisibly
as possible, probably considered an un-unifonned fireman or a
back-office flunky of some sort.

Churchill's party arrived late and was seated after the show
was well started. I remained unobtrusively in the side aisle and
conned the house, having already checked the theatre's manage-
ment. I was pleased, upon looking through each row and spotting
various of my colleagues, when Adele Astaire recognized our
"public hero," stopped the show, and came to the apron of the
stage.

"THERE HE is," she cried happily and Winston rose in that
rumpled slump of his, bowed and was most thrillingly cheered.
Adele Astaire called for three cheers for Winston and what a
mighty sound it was! What a thrill! What a man!

Then the pit orchestra struck up the opening bars of "God
Save the King." There was an exhausting relief about the evening
and many happy tears and Churchill of course received hundreds
of congratulations as he sat in the stalls with his party. The
Morning Post, now appearing under its own name again, wrote
of this hour: "It was an eloquent testimony to the delight of the
London public at the unconditional withdrawal of the General
Strike."

One of the old Empire's managers tapped me on the shoulder
to say that there were some "unpleasant" characters in the lobby.
I went out with him. Here, with eight or nine others, hands in
pockets, was my old friend who had struck me in the jaw that
night on Berwick Street when Churchill was trying to get a seat
from Westminster.

A fine cold fury suffused me. I could have taken on the whole
packet of them, I had no thought in my mind at that instant but to

82 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

break as many heads as I could hit. I kept walking across the
lobby of the theatre, a cheerful background of music behind. I
walked right toward the man and ignored the others, though they
watched my approach with some curiosity. I drew back my right
arm with no other purpose than to drive my fist right through
this unfortunate man's skull if he should remain still for me. Then
he recognized my purpose.

"Look out! It's him!" he shrieked and he bolted into the street.
The others, in wild conjecture believing me to be the devil at least,
hared after him. I am sure he became a model citizen and grate-
ful voter. Among the thousands of miscreants I viewed in later
years big and little he was absent.

There was something about the termination of the General
Strike that had a poor ring to it. Winston never takes anything
that isn't his. But he hates to have anything taken from him that
is his. Winston Churchill had been in one nerve-wracking con-
ference after another all during the Strike. Many of these were
with some of the toughest talking and toughest looking men on
this planet. I remember, for example, secret meetings in such
London houses as Sir Abe Bailey's (the salty South African mil-
lionaire) when I first met "Jimmy" Thomas, the Colonial Secre-
tary, and A. J. Cook, the miners' leader, who said he'd settle
for anything Churchill himself thought was fair and sensible.

Where had the Prime Minister been during the General Strike?
He had been for the "cure" to Aix-les-Bains on a holiday.

Winston Churchill broke the Strike and made the settlement
but Stanley Baldwin took the credit for it. Winston resented this
very bitterly. Any man would. His resentment was never publicly
stated because Winston continued to serve Baldwin. But some of
the shock of ingratitude and pomposity swept up to me in my
eyrie in the House when Baldwin as Prime Minister announced
the end of the Strike to the House. And he was only a few hours
back from the baths! He did so in such a way as to exclude any
suggestion of the mighty contribution that Churchill, his Chan-
cellor, had made to the government. He seemed to imply that
since this settlement had been arranged during the Baldwin in-
cumbency, it was a Baldwin doing. And it was no such thing.

With the evidence of many days of the sunshine of southern

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 83

France on Ms face, while Churchill looked dead and ashen and
almost useless, I realized I could never care too much about
Baldwin and that if I was later assigned by Scotland Yard to the
protection of Stanley Baldwin, I would apply for other assign-
ment.

The Duke of Westminster, who had a residence near Dieppe,
invited Mr. Churchill to his place for a weekend. A great fatigue
had settled on the Chancellor of the Exchequer a reaction to
his drive to settle the Strike, and he happily accepted the Duke's
invitation to escape telephones, meetings, people, and papers to
sign. He also liked the Duke very much.

He decided to drive the car himself to Dover to catch the boat
for the Channel crossing. This is always a bad sign. It either
means that he is cross and subconsciously wants to smash up
something, or that he is dangerously elated and things will get
smashed up anyhow through careless exuberance. Mr. Churchill
has an immense grasp of the advantages and uses of the machine
age; a real genius for putting whole mechanized organizations to
work, whether it be a navy, an air force, or a fleet of emergency
automobiles to distribute his British Gazette. But he has no per-
sonal sensitivity about the machines themselves. He strips gears
and rams head-on toward anything. He could never learn, for
example, to fly an airplane though flight has been one of his
greatest enthusiasms. He is a great shot but a poor dancer. He is
a strong swimmer but he sounds and looks like a North Sea flotilla
maneuver. He has the most beautifully kept hands I ever saw on
a man and they have great strength, but the very few times he
tried to play golf he cursed the turf till it sizzled, never once hit
the ball a clean whack, and sent gouts of grass into the air.

Did he ever, in fact, solo when he was first getting the feel of
flying? No, he never did, though flying officers have told me they
are sure he was thinking of it He would have cracked up. If
things had not gone the way he felt they should, his temper would
have blown up in midair and the retaliatory forces of gravity
would be waiting for him when it was time for the two to meet
Winston and the earth, that is. He was a bit less than fair when

g4 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

he took over controls in the early days, but was useless in the
problem of landing or taking off. There was no sense of "glide"
in his makeup; no lightness of touch; no kinship with the invisi-
bility of this fluid element.

His driving was no better, and when he drove (I always en-
deavored, usually successfully, to persuade him against it) he was
forever just missing things, or not quite missing them and denting

cars MS own and others. People shouldn't be in his way, was

Ms theory. "Here I come look out!" might have been painted
on his windshield. In actual collisions, he does not to this day be-
lieve any of the damage could have been any of his doing. He
does not take blame very well. But then, why should he?

So we drove, myself in some misery, hurrying for Dover.
Churchill was driving as if all he hated was Stanley Baldwin and
all he wanted was to find Baldwin suddenly in the right of way so
he could ram a "thank you" out of him. There was a lot of road
repair. We were near Croydon. Winston went through ruts just
as if they weren't there. The road narrowed. Construction lamps
were burning. Cars were in single file. There were mounds of
shoveled earth about. Winston did not care for the delay the situa-
tion indicated. He saw an opening between the line of cars and I
suddenly realized we had jumped out of the road and were pro-
gressing right down the sidewalks of Croydon. It was apparently
the plan of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to bypass the single
file of almost stationary cars and merely rejoin the procession
when he could conveniently be head of it!

It was indeed most foolish of him. He had forgotten that pedes-
trians have privileges on their own sidewalks and are not accus-
tomed to seeing motorists, even Chancellors, drive right down
them. We got into a nice mess in no time and had to make an
abrupt stop (Churchill was unusually good in the technique of
the abrupt stop) and of course looked up into the face of an out-
raged local constable.

"You fool!" the constable shouted. Then he swore most richly
for some seconds.

Churchill's head hung down in deep discouragement. He did
have the civic sense to say he was sorry (though Fm sure he was

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 85

not at all sorry just nettled at the delay) and the matchless voice
of the man identified him at once to the constable.

"Sorry, Mr. Churchill." Then the majesty of the constable's
office and the disgusting guilt of the violator brought forth, in gen-
tle sarcasm, a caution that withered Churchill and kept Mm silent
clear to the Channel. The constable looked into the car in the
most falsely paternal way imaginable and said softly: "Do try to
stay in the road, sir."

At the dockside at Dover, there was a group of Irish extremists
waiting for Winston. I knew one of them by sight and three by
photographs. Half a dozen others, to reduce suspicion of those
who had come to attack Churchill, were wearing Sinn Fein badges
on their coats, being ostentatious in their anti-British calumnia-
tions. They were drinking, swearing, and spitting into the ocean.
When they saw Churchill and me, they went aboard and into the
ship's saloon. I stepped back ashore and called the Yard. Scotland
Yard cleared a sergeant who was on customs duty at the port
and I held up our departure a few moments while my colleague
(we of course never "know" each other) could get into a dis-
guise.

We communicated with each other by methods familiar to us,
my purpose being to see to it that the men who had come to harm
Churchill were informed that I was his bodyguard. I passed
through the saloon a few moments later, looking like Scotland Yard
in every dart of the eye and action of the hand. Some of the ship's
officers came with me to embellish the appearance of our "security
tour." I opened a valise or two, asked one of the officers to show
his weapons, which he did (though I had to loan him a Webley),
had the proper number of whispered conversations, the formal
sweeping of the saloon with the hard eye, the inspection of pass-
ports and pocketbooks that had no meaning.

In less than a full minute the Irish knew I was the man to follow,
for where I would be there would be Churchill also. This was the
purpose of the excursion through the saloon, the first leg of the
small journey to nowhere.

Churchill likes to know when he's in danger. It exhilarates him.
He gets extra lively and almost boyishly concerned. The danger
simply delights Mm. So we never tell him.

86 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

He ate breakfast in a restaurant in Calais after the crossing,
quite by the station where the Dieppe train was standing. Between
the Dieppe train and the main right-of-way for the Paris train
stood a goods train. It was detaching a car from a string. At the
proper moment and by prearrangement with the stationmaster at
Calais, when the Paris train came through, I hurriedly boarded it
with a large supply of hand luggage. Winston Churchill was in
the gentlemen's retiring rooms on my orders while the Paris train
stood in the Calais station.

Though the Irish for those few moments had lost physical sight
of their quarry, they had never lost sight of me. And two of the
bags I had with me as I climbed into the Paris train bore the name
of Winston Churchill. The Paris train started. I was aboard. So
were the Irish. But not Winston. I walked through it on a se-
curity tour. Fearless Fosdick. AE the Irish were riding with me.
I examined tickets, peered into bags that were none of my busi-
ness, followed conductors, turned pieces of paper this way and
that, and once again was very much in charge of the life of a man
who at that moment was not even in motion. I am particularly im-
pressive in dining cars.

In the Gare St. Lazare, I was greeted by other members of Scot-
land Yard who appeared as French baggage clerks and station
manager's personnel. They took me and Winston's baggage di-
rectly into the manager's office where I was momentarily invisible.
I went quickly through a side door and directly into the cargo
space of a goods van, sat down in the dark after dropping a tar-
paulin flap, and was driven to the Gare du Nord where I boarded
a train for Dieppe. At Dieppe I stepped into a taxicab and was
driven out to the estate of the Duke of Westminster.

Winston had been there for a few hours by then, having been
driven there by one of the Duke's chauffeurs and guarded in my
absence by my colleague who had come aboard in Dover in dis-
guise. I relieved him. Mr. Churchill, upon seeing me back with
him, grinned happily. He was dressed in hunting pink and velvet
cap and immediately charged away, with the weekend party and
a whole sounder of hounds, on a boar hunt. I followed in a car.
I also am always properly dressed for everything, considering my
work, and own nothing but a suit.

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 87

But that is a good example of a Scotland Yard inspector's jour-
ney to nowhere. It had accomplished its purpose: it had kept dan-
ger away from the Old Man.

Winston Churchill's popularity could of course not stay at a
high pitch for an indefinite time in a nation like England where
every man is absolutely positive he is right and says so continu-
ously. One of the newspapers had called him a "genius without
judgment." Stanley Baldwin called him a "hundred horsepower
brain," more perhaps in the spirit of a man who can't harness all
the power he's been given. He was called an opportunist, and it was
said he was "jaywalking through life." Winston didn't seem to care
too much what people said of him so long as they went on using
him.

The final volume of The World Crisis had now appeared, a
great success financially and critically too. His magazine work was
commanding ever larger figures, and the legacy from Vane-Tem-
pest, his Irish cousin, made possible his purchase of Chartwell
Manor.

When Churchill purchased this great house and the huge
stretch of ground which surrounded it, his life seemed to open out
in a new way. A new dignity entered him. I think he had longed
for years to have some place of his own to go for holidays and
weekends; a place where he could really work the earth with Ms
own hands and tools; where he could relax. At ChartweE he
did just that.

I was with him on the long and excited walks that preceded
his buying of the land itself (there were many parcels not at-
tached to the original grounds which Mr. Churchill wanted to
have) . One could see that much work all of which he anticipated
with huge excitement was going to be needed. He read lists of
projects out loud to me.

"We'll have to mow that." "We'll have to plant that." "That
ought to be leveled and scraped." "New hedges in here." "We can
divert this runnel and dig out this little bog and put in a pool,
Thompson." "The house of course will have to be extensively

gg ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

altered." "I want several acres of perfect lawn, Thompson. Please
get up early and see to it."

After the purchase of the estate, he did not move his family
in for some months. The alterations were about as comprehensive
and expensive as he had said they'd be. Winston loves to get into
workclothes and he is a horse for day labor. So he and I, with
a whole army of gardeners, stonemasons, diggers, planters, and
bricklayers, spent hundreds of hours turning this fine place into a
perfect English country home.

Here was peace, beauty, and architectural dignity. There was
none of the dead and rusty grandeur of Blenheim, nor any of the
impassive though impressive gloominess of Chequers.

Being able to help gave me a proper kind of exercise I had been
missing while jumping about the Houses of Parliament, and rush-
ing through the Mediterranean, election meetings and to the in-
numerable colleges and universities that were forever offering him
a new degree or a graduation speech invitation.

It was good for Winston Churchill too, to get close to the
ground and the fine smell of it, and to work it and plant it and
make it bloom and yield. His great natural strength because of his
hard training at Harrow and Sandhurst had not at all begun to
abate, but he had the stoop of government and he had areas of fat
that could not be worn with comfort. As his lawns improved, Ms
fat melted away and the gratifying hardness came back to him.

He loved to stand on his porches and shout at us, giving wild
and encouraging instructions. I was head lawnmower (I have tre-
mendous arm power) and it was fun to use my arms again. As our
labors went forward and the lawns came into being, Winston's
expression of pride of possession was a pleasure to look at. It
was not at all his office or Exchequer face. I suppose it was more
the face that his "Qemmie" had married.

The house is built on a level with the roadway, with a bank of
trees and flowering shrubs going high up from the front. At the
rear the ground goes right down in a V-shape, to rise up again on
the other side of the property into a handsome cluster of great
old trees. At the time Winston took possession there was one
large lake running along the bottom part of the grounds, and a

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 89

smaller one at the side of the house which was fed by a number of
springs which had been directed into it.

After we got the lawns all finished, Winston ordered a concrete
dam to be put at the end of the big lake the inlet end of it This
of course formed another lake and in a most surprisingly short
time. It delighted him. Once he began changing the surface geog-
raphy of things, he couldn't stop. The mixing of cement fascinated
him. With a hoe and a sandpile this man was altogether tireless.
The humming through the nostrils began all over again, frighten-
ing off the birds.

"Over with it!" he'd shout, with a great barrow of sand, cement,
rock, brick, stone, or lumber, and he'd spill the burden with a cave-
man's joy into an unsightly but purposeful pile. He was a great
exhorter of his own crews, often showing them how to lay brick
when he did not yet know how to hold a trowel.

When he wanted a swimming pool, he at once set about to dig
it, then line it, then run the water in. When it was too cold to swim
in, he at once devised a complicated but sensible system of con-
duits to carry warming water directly into the new pool. This had
the same dependability that North Americans assign to the rest
of our plumbing. Few swam there, though Churchill very often
did so in the years following, and put up a diving board from
which he would launch Ms happy hulk first into the air, then into
the complaining waters, where he overwhelmed them in a flailing
tradgeon that showered onlookers twenty feet away.

It was in this period of primitive rediscovery of England's earth
that the legend of Churchill the Bricklayer began. It was like so
many other things. He just loved the visual gratification that brick-
laying brought Mm. You could see more progress every few min-
utes. Winston could lay over two thousand bricks in a single day.
British unions don't permit more than eight hundred.

In any case, his first "wall," which he finished in four hours
before lunch one rooming and wMch he proudly f asMoned without
guiding strings, level or foundation, looked less like a wall to
the amazed but silent bricklayers who were too paralyzed to say
anything than it did like a funnel of mine tailings after a disaster.
It was a thorougHy awful wall that would fall down with the very
first rain. Winston, of course, because he'd built the thing, went

90 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

off to Ms luncheon quite sure it was the best thing since the

Romans.

We gave up our own lunchtime to pull down his work and put
it all back together again, working with the regular beat of output
that pronounces the professional A little before twilight, Mr.
Churchill came out again, bringing with him a Cabinet member
whose identity I don't now recall, and pointed out his great
skill and speed and sureness of eye and steadiness of hand and
delicacy of trowel work. "One morning's work, and behold: a
classic entity!"

Churchill's manual skill did somewhat improve, to be sure. He
had a way of watching other people doing their job and of imitat-
ing without revealing ignorance by asking. The newspapers were
picking up running stories about Chartwell the pool, the water
heating, the dams, the lawn but no one had the courage to tell
him what we thought of his bricklaying and what we had done
about it Actually I never did summon the moral courage to look
Mr. Churchill in the face and tell him we'd torn down his poor
wall and built a proper one.

It is even possible he would not have at that time believed it
anyhow. Pictures of him in all manner of workclothes were proof
that the man had taken charge of nature singlehanded and, be-
cause he was famous and was of course in the forefront of all the
press pictures, the imposing proof of accomplishment that made
up all these backgrounds was ascribed to Churchill's own enter-
prise and personal zeal. The bricklayers, carpenters, and gardeners
might have been so many Gilbert and Sullivan decorations waiting
to sing.

To me, there was some delicious recompense in that it made up
somewhat for his getting no praise from Stanley Baldwin for
breaking the General Strike when he had done most of it all by
himself.

Not for ten years did Winston know the real truth about his
wall, when he read of it in a book I wrote. He was a fine sport
about it, after the first stab of pain, for he had the satisfaction to
have been a member during all that decade of the Bricklayers*
Union. They had been so impressed with the photographs of "his"
labors that they were proud to include anyone so distinguished as

ASSIGNMENT: CHUHCHILL 91

a Chancellor of the Exchequer in their membership. There was a
brief challenge about it from the union's council, querying the
right of an amateur to enjoy professional standing and the union's
protection that went with it. This turned into an amusing row.
The union itself seemed to want the "bricklayer-statesman" in
their company, the council not to, and the Socialist element in the
membership was strong enough to force the president to ask
Churchill, who by then had paid dues, to resign.

Churchill was hurt at first, then majestically furious. He re-
minded the whole union that they had sought his membership and
he'd lay bricks with the best of them in a public exhibit to prove
his competence. He said he was to be considered in this matter
for exactly what he was and that he was a bricklayer and nothing
more and those who were dragging in his "incidental duties" as
King's Minister were laying down a smokescreen over the dignity
of organized, skilled labor.

He never did resign. He still pays dues. And he has thoroughly
learned to lay a straight course of bricks, the use of plumbline, the
level, and guiding string being part of his own equipment now.
But at first it had been like his driving, or his flying, or his golf:
massive energy but no touch. He's basically a rammer and a
pounder.

How about his painting then? Fd say it's like Ms deskwork, or
his rifle marksmanship, total concentration on one small area with
one fixed purpose, no machinery, nor involvement with people.
Here is Churchill, the contained man, at Ms best But give him a
swimming pool or a war and look out.

His family began to materialize. They had motored out on many
afternoons to inspect the progress of their new home. Mrs.
Churchill, whose expression seldom changed from its beautiful
and almost severe serenity even when we were fearful we would
have to set civilians to shooting invading Germans, was thorougMy
taken with her new place in the country. The children of course
devoured it all and tried the lakes one after another, Randolph
sampling every stream to see what fishing the property had.

Winston's great love of water, salt water for swimming when

92 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

lie can get it, but moving water at any time, seemed an almost
primitive thing in the man. I liad noticed his instant response to
the roar of the Jordan on our first long trip together when he
could only hear the power of it without yet seeing it. The same
expression was duplicated when he first beheld Niagara in North
America. Here at Chartwell the natural water system, and the
filled basins that gravity had deposited about so generously and
that spilled from one to another, was as much a continuous occu-
pation to Ms mind and fancy as an elaborate system of toy trains
is to an inventive boy. When he found such a quantity of water
escaping his own swimming pool and losing itself to no observable
advantage in the lower ground beyond, he built another pool there
to catch it and hold it. He put goldfish into them. Some of them
became very large and they became so familiar with the appear-
ance of Churchill that they would swim to the side of the bank and
take food from his hands. He has painted this. There was enough
steepness of ground so that the interconnections of these ponds,
lakes and pools six altogether by now made happy waterfalls
everywhere.

A short distance from the main house are a number of cottages
and outhouses. One of these latter he turned into a studio. It is
fourteen feet square but very lofty. He put slats of wood about
the interior walls and many of his paintings from the time he com-
menced are now fixed to these walls, another of the activities of
this busy and happy man during this interval. His paintings re-
veal his itineraries, and often when my own duties were done and
I was either awaiting my relief or departure with him for London,
Paris, Washington or Toronto, I would go into this simple but
lively place and sit. I liked to see where I'd been! And what a
gallery! Pompeii, Waterloo, Stromboli, the fjords, Dutch canals,
Ulster, Balmoral, Devonshire, Kent, Passchendaele, Festubert,
Ypres, Vimy Ridge, Mons, Messines, Menin, Scapa Flow, the
Minches, Rotterdam, Rome, the Acropolis, the Theseum, the
Caryatides, the Tomb of Cheops, and the Assuan Dam.

Over the years he has gotten over the difficulty of having to
finish at one sitting. He has developed a system whereby he does
not have to return to the scene itself, as he had to, for example, in
the Holy Land, or at the Pyramids the first time. From about the

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 93

time of the late 1920's he evolved a scheme of outlining the pic-
ture. If he feared interruption, or knew he could not soon come
back, he would dab in the various colors (their exact shade and
quality) from which he could pick up the scene from memory and
reconstruct the whole. Many times, when I've had the oppor-
tunity to appraise his technique, having been myself to the site of
the original and seeing what was done and what was left undone,
I have been surprised at the marvelous results he has obtained
from this method.

The case in point was demonstrated to its best advantage at
Marrakesh, during World War II. Marrakesh is slightly inland
from Casablanca and Mr. Churchill had gone there to recuperate
following his extreme illness at Tunis when we all thought we'd
lost him. At first his recovery was exceedingly slow. He was too
weak to think of painting, so, perverse man that he is and thor-
oughly un-Christian patient, painting was the first thing he thought
of. Marrakesh is a savage city, full of wonder, hideous in its his-
tories and ugly to the eye at close range, but most romantic when
softened by half-distances* or the gathering pity of twilight. Winston
very much wanted to paint a picture of Marrakesh, showing as
much of the city as possible. As there was a tower attached to the
house where we were staying, he requested my colleague and me
to carry him in a special chair to the tower's top. We did this. A
marvelous view was obtainable from this height. Lugging him up
the several hundred steps was not easy but when you work for
Churchill, nothing is easy and everything is worth what it costs.
Suddenly, as he painted, his strength gave out and he asked to
be carried down again. This of course we immediately did,

He did not return to this canvas for three years; not till after
the war. But Ms method, with the optical reminders he had
sketched for himself in the tower, was good enough so that Mar-
rakesh is the most admired of all his paintings by professionals
whp have studied Ms whole output If s dazzling, Moorish, and
sad. He recalled the sight of it and his emotional impressions of it
all in only a few moments after he pulled it out and looked at
it again.

Winston paints almost anything except people or violence. He
loves water and is one of the few who can get the sound of water

94 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

onto canvas. Yet lie has never painted a storm, or wild water, that
I know of. Shore margins and mirages are his favorites here. The
signs and symbols of man's life and presence are usually in Ms
pictures somewhere: houses, buildings, cathedrals, a suggestion
of population. He loves ruins and could not be pulled away from
Pompeii. He studies his subject only briefly, then works with great
speed. He never fights his work. The paint goes on and stays on
with the blunt and self-assured enthusiasm that his trowel brings
to his bricklaying. He slaps it into place and there it stays. As to
content, his pictures are always a spontaneous reaction to a single
theme: pool, temple, ship, harbor. Though he works at high speed,
there is no sign of carelessness. Winston Churchill's own life has
been dramatic often melodramatic yet his paintings are peace-
ful. There is not a riot of any sort in a single one of them, in color,
activity, or suggestiveness. So I would think that the man's inner
spirit is superbly calm and that he paints from it never from the
mind or the intellect, never certainly from the surface excitements
that propel most men in the uses of their leisure. While his results
always produce a contemplative quality, there is no religious over-
tone there, no subjectivity, nor hidden hints that greater meanings
will emerge from longer study.

I do not know when his painting started. He was a good painter
when I first met him, but I am told that even as a very young man,
his dispatches to the London papers from the scenes he witnessed
as a war correspondent in the Boer War were often decorated
with sketches that were filled in and used as illustrations in his
newspaper articles. I have heard his friends say that Winston is a
good portraitist and this may be true, though I could not say. I
have looked for many hours, with nobody at all about, at nearly
all of his paintings (the majority of them are in his studio in.
Chartwell) and the only portrait that comes to mind is that of
Sir John Lavery.

Churchill's attitude toward his own work is an interesting and
not uncommon paradox in all men of abundant talent: the shield
of modesty and the mirror of pride. He won't part with his own
work. Few own a thing he has painted, though I would estimate
his output now to run over four hundred and fifty canvases. So,
while being miserly in the possession of his own work, he rarely

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 95

signs it, even by initials. He won't sell what he paints. His wife
Clementine once urged him to put up one of his works for auction
for a benefit of some kind and his painting "The Blue Sitting
Room" drew a bid of twelve hundred and fifty guineas.

Churchill has only rarely lent his work to exhibits. And then
only when he has the protection of anonymity. Here, I think, he
liked to stand up under the pressure of competitive skills and see
how good he was considered to be by those who did not realize
they were examining the labors of a Prime Minister. The vanity-
modesty dilemma again, an odd but constant ambivalence in him.
Possibly too Professor Thomas Bodkin, the art critic, director of
the Barber Institute of the University of Birmingham, may be
close to a great truth about Churchill, one which I missed in my
twenty years of daily contact and conversation with him. I have
come upon the thought only recently and the more I consider
the paragraph, the more sense it makes to me: "He may think,
for all I know, that his reputation as a statesman might suffer from
his activities as an artist. In this country a love of music or the
visual arts is still too often considered to be evidence of mental
instability. Had Mr. Gladstone composed symphonies or Mr.
Disraeli carved statues it is unlikely that either would ever have
found himself at the head of one of Queen Victoria's govern-
ments."

None of his work is catalogued and it would be my guess that
upon the passing of this man, his work as an artist will tumble into
the most terrible confusion. It is the most unprotected part of his
total output and his vulnerability here (in lack of safeguards) is
both fascinatingly and tragically uncharacteristic of him. After
his death, it will not be possible for any living person positively
to say just when this or that picture was executed. There will be
disputes as to where they were painted. Yet they have great value
in associations of contemporary history, as I think you may agree
from the incident I have recorded of Marrakesh. Front or back,
though, most of his canvases contain neither date, title, clue,
name, or initial. TMs seems very wrong to me and I hope, if he
again finds any period of relaxation, that he can go through his
Chartwell studio, Chequers and Number Ten Downing Street,
where there are about fourteen of his pictures, and label every

96 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

single one of them as to date, circumstance, location. I suppose
they will acquire their own titles, which is not important. But surely
time and place are of paramount concern.

I never did get over my annoyance at having to carry all the
stuff he used. I suppose it's a foolish resentment but I never could
get over It. It seemed coolie work, especially in Africa where mil-
lions of available coolies obviously thought so too. They just
couldn't understand it. Neither could I. And Winston since I
never complained didn't need to understand.

The Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, in the
kte 1920 5 s, was Admiral Sir Roger Keyes. We were to visit Mm
at the British Island base of Malta, preparatory to joining the
fleet for extensive exercises and maneuvers. I was enjoying the
ride on board a handsome Italian liner named the Esperia. I was
thinking that my lot was perhaps just a bit better than was that
of my other colleagues in the Special Branch. It was a fine morn-
ing. Then a British destroyer was sighted ripping a white streak
through the surface. She pulled up alongside. In no time at all,
Churchill and I were aboard the destroyer. A few moments later
we were at breakfast on the heights of Valetta, and it seemed to
me that every day I was lugging Winston Churchill's damn paint-
boxes about. Actually, it was for only two days,

I suppose, as I get older, I am getting the feeling that I did all
Hie work while he got all the fun and glory. So be it.

The fleet coasted back after maneuvers, rounding flie Italian
boot. Mr. Churchill was to be guest of King Victor Emmanuel and
to meet II Duce too later on. The King did not know how much
longer he was to be allowed around his own palace and country.

I was not given any particular instructions about the protection
of Mr. Churchill during this stay in Italy. So many special detec-
tives (Italians) followed us around that it gave us all a sense
of comic-opera security. Mobs went alongside us, laughing, taking
pictures, waving signs. On one occasion Winston accepted an in-
vitation of some English friends to spend a few days and nights
in their villa near Florence. Just to be sure, I checked Scotland
Yard and was informed to insist that Winston mot leave the villa

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 97

after sundown. He was having a good time there and so did not
resist the order.

This liberated me evenings, an unusual and welcome change. I
poked about all over Florence one night Returning home late
that evening, I heard a burst of gunfire, and a lot of screaming
and running. Knowing it could have nothing to do with my own
charge, my interest in the matter was more boyishly investigative
than professional,

A mob of Blackshirts were quite obviously killing a group of
their enemies in a large house right beside the main thoroughfare.
It was not at all my fight but I could not resist wanting to see who
was killing whom and how it was progressing. It was all in perfect
accordance with my own views of the way Italians were supposed
to behave, and with Mussolini at the threshold of power it seemed
altogether correct Presently flames began shooting from many
windows of the house. I could smell petrol. People ran in and out,
then only out. Several men who had been stabbed but not quite
killed struggled screaming into the garden before me, clutching
themselves, looking blindly about Three of them toppled over
dead.

I had many impressive passes, instantly recognizable by Euro-
pean police anywhere and upon showing them to the Carabinieri
who came up upon the retreat of the Blackshirts, I was left alone
and unnoticed. An English-speaking Italian detective, who recog-
nized me as of the Churchill party, told me without concern or in-
terest that it was a "private affair" between the Fascisti and a
nest of their enemies. They had killed a whole family, including
all the girls and the children too.

Even with such an ugly exposure to what later on became my
favorite abomination of all time (Mussolini was far more loath-
some, even though far less dangerous, than Hitler), I must say in
all truth that when I was close to and in the physical presence of
Benito Mussolini, he impressed me as no other human I had up
to then ever met*

I am past sixty now and it is indeed hard to countenance what
I have here written. Yet then it was not only not hard to be im-
pressed with the man; it was the universal reaction. I know

98 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

Churchill was not in the least impressed with the so-called "long-
walk-to-the-Presence." Churchill likes to take the military clank
out of heavily decorated aides and flunkeys, when he thinks they
need it, by jabbing them in the belly or blowing smoke into their
faces, so instead of clanking fearsomely they merely tinkle sweetly
like toys. He then goes past, never looking back to enjoy the apo-
plexy of surprise and outrage he's left there whenever he decides
to ignore self-importance.

So, when challenged by the advance brass of Mussolini's outer
chamber for daring to be smoking at all and especially for think-
ing he could walk in on D. Duce that way, he simply passed his
smoldering cigar to the astounded sergeant who had challenged
him, pushed his gun up, and walked in by himself, lighting a fresh
cigar while he closed the door with his foot.

I was not in the Presence for the interview but I was on hand
that same night. The occasion was a grand reception for Winston
Churchill at the British Embassy. Our Embassy in Rome is a
pretty good one. Most are dreadful but this one, in beauty and
stateliness, is suitable to house the representative of an English
King. Somewhat to give me a rest from my chores, the Ambas-
sador had declared me his official champagne taster. I tasted all
the champagne the corps of butlers opened, using the Russian
technique of engulfing an hors d'oeuvres between swigs. I had a
pretty good time that night

About ten-thirty, with all the guests assembled, there was a
great bleat of sirens, and a sudden bold show of police. As Amer-
icans would say, they "cased the joint." It was unbelievably rude
and fantastically unnecessary. I suddenly realized what was known
to many others: it was the "dramatic preamble" to the entrance
of the Big Man.

And at the psychologically right instant, just after his special
police had swept in and swept out and before the host of the eve-
ning could intercede, Mussolini strode in alone. It was of course
almost comical. But he got away with it. He dominated that whole
embassy floor. He was swaggering and he was pompous but the
fanaticism of the man, and the flame of some passionate purpose,
the look of strength and boldness, were altogether real and com-

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 99

polling. It affected every man and woman In that gathering. I sup-
pose that he was thoroughly rotten right then and there, but it
did not show; not anywhere. He was alRoman| He had a sheen
and an exterior appearance Napoleon would have envied. And
he knew how to wear it. Perhaps that was the main thing.

He nodded to me as he passed. It was one of my duties to col-
lect the invitations from arriving guests, though why I should
want to know who was genuine and who was not was never made
clear to me. I suppose it was thought since there has always
been an almost comic-opera enthusiasm for gate-crashing at Ital-
ian embassy parties of all kinds that Scotland Yard could tell
the difference between a guest and an impostor at a glance. I
don't know whether Mussolini had a card or not; I never thought
to challenge him. He was the one who did all the challenging.

H Duce was one of the few uniformed men in the place and this
helped him. He was passed quickly to all the guests of primary im-
portance. He was a conscientious lingerer over women, a swag-
gerer and a heel-clicker by instinct, and lie jingled about in the
bright lights, his medals, some of them known to be self-compli-
mentary, gleaming and ringing like a county fair jewelry stall in a
wind. Winston, who had been reading something handed him by
his companion of that moment, now removed his glasses the better
to see the Conqueror. There was no other way to explain the look
that came to Churchill's eye than the phrase: Who's kidding?

But I was impressed. At least until I happened to be near the
King and Mussolini. They were walking in the Palace grounds. I
was waiting for Winston. The King accidentally dropped Ms hand-
kerchief on the grass. Mussolini immediately stooped to pick it
up, whereupon His Majesty said, "No, no, do not pick it up."

"But your Majesty/' cried Mussolini. "You know I would do
anything for you."

"I prefer," said His Majesty, **to pick up my handkerchief my-
self. It is the only thing belonging to me that you have not put
your nose into/*

An attendant whispered a translation of this amusing exchange
to Mr. Churchill who in turn relayed it to me, with great amuse-
ment, as soon as we were away from the palace.

100 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

Well, tMngs very often went very quickly with Winston
Churchill. We got back to England but it was no time at all before
fee was very much out of a job. This time he was out for good.

So it seemed, too, for though he was still an M.P., he did not
exercise power of any memorable influence at all for more than
ten years.

The circumstances of his leaving public life in 1929 and re*
maining out of it till the beginning of World War II are better
known to contemporary historians than they are to me. I saw him
often and served him, on his lecture trip through America, but
I don't know what went on in Ms mind during the long interval.

It is hard to see a busy man assigned to idleness. But Winston
was suddenly no longer Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was
suddenly nothing. The economic decline had subtly changed the
public's attitude toward him. He did not know much about money
or economics not very much more than how to make a good liv-
ing for himself and his family somewhat as the Roosevelts have
always been able to do. Because depressions and Chancellors of the
Exchequer are supposed to be able to explain each other to their
public and because Winston could not do so, he began to lose favor.
His fear of the rise of socialism and communism was increasing
and his hatred of it was increasingly outspoken. His genuine affec-
tion for the workers was thereby doubted by them; even the Tories
felt he was becoming too Tory. And Churchill's colorful impetu-
ousness, so deadly right so many times throughout his whole life,
seemed to make him everywhere more vulnerable. It was claimed
all about that his methods were like a weathervane.

"They don't want me around, Thompson," he said mournfully
one morning. "They need someone to take the blame. They need
someone big to take the blame. There is going to be a great deal of
blaming and they seem determined that I shall receive it." And
that is how it went

Ramsay MacDonald's socialism moved into the Houses of
Parliament. Winston Churchill, though still an M.P., stepped down
from government office.

He called me into his study early one morning at Chartwell
Manor and told me lugubriously that the "authorities" would like
his reaction to their suggestion that perhaps the time to withdraw

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 101

special protection from foim had now come. He did not tell me that
titie authorities had suggested he dismiss me, as the public and its
new Prime Minister had dismissed Winston, but that was it.

We both, of course, understood this right away. Englishmen
don't take on in such circumstances. And it may be, too, that our
feelings are more restrained than those of men of other nations or
races.

In any case, so long as there was no one around any longer who
wanted to assassinate Winston Churchill, I could not be regarded
as other than an unnecessary public expense.

We shook hands and I left.

Reporting to Scotland Yard, I was immediately reassigned. I
chased Communists for two years, a bore if ever there was
one. We call this "following the activities of political bodies of
extreme opinion." The only interesting man I tailed was Sir
Oswald Mosley. He was a Fascist, not a Communist, but he looked
to the rest of England as if he might disturb the peace if he could.
He was a great speaker, a well-disciplined thinker, and a quick-
minded theatrical man with a lot of education, far more than
Mussolini had or any of the Russians for that matter, except Lenin.
He aped, without knowing it, the hand gestures and the very
gait of II Duce and separated himself from comparison to the
Italian by a studied simplicity and almost funereal simplicity of
dress. Mosley had the reserve of the professional executioner about
him. Mussolini always looked like a rooster and could strut any-
where, even in bis own bathroom. You knew Mussolini regretted
he had not invented the goosestep. Mosley, though, moved to the
rhythm of the saraband.

There was a solemnity to Oswald. He somehow had the look
of the church or perhaps the cemetery. He was pale and sad
and his force seemed truly an inner one not as easy to diagnose
as false as H Duce*s. He could hold audiences, but he seldom
shouted. When he did shout, the effect was stunning in the ex-
treme.

Like Mussolini, he waited for the right moment to enter. And
he always managed to have a main aisle down which he progressed
always alone. No hangers-on at close range, ever.

102 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

It has been the great mystery in my whole life why anyone
should want to be a Communist, a Fascist, or a totalitarian of any
kind, nameable or unnameable, when Communists themselves are
the walking proof that there is no comfort in it, no money, no
sense, and no future; that there is nothing but insult; the merciless
tedium of intellectual depravity; the merciless twist of physical de-
pravity; and not a single dish upon which the human mind or belly
can feed in peace either by himself or with his fellows. I have
never met a Communist who was not a bully, a coward, or a fool,
or, most common, a secret failure to himself.

My meditations on Communists and Fascists were broken in on
by a most happy contrast of ideas. Scotland Yard had received an
inquiry from Winston Churchill as to my possible interest in ac-
companying him on a lecture tour to the United States and Canada.

I at once said I would be delighted to do so but how could such
a pleasant prospect be legitimized? What had Scotland Yard to do
with a man who was no longer a King's Minister?

There was a partial answer to this question. There were sev-
eral secret societies in India who had for sometime wanted to kill
Winston. These societies had cells in America and Canada.
Churchill had been opposed to the India Constitution Bill, feeling
at that time the Indians were not fit no matter how willing to try
to embark on the expensive business of running themselves.
Then too, he didn't want to lose India anyhow. It was not unlike
his feeling about Egypt.

The Indian Terrorist Society quite courageous and formidable,
even if uncertain of aim was a well-organized group with sev-
eral hundred members, many of them men of fine character and
education. It was believed, however, that they would have noth-
ing on their conscience if they could bring down Winston
Churchill by whatever means.

Even though at this time he was an ordinary M.P., he was con-
sidered by the Indians to be their greatest living enemy. It was
Scotland Yard's information that attempts on Churchill's life
would be made in America, if he actually arrived there for a long
tour, and that these attempts would most likely be made in one
of four cities, New York, Detroit, Chicago, or San Francisco. The
terrorists' headquarters were located in this latter city. Detroit and

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 103

Chicago had substantial numbers of Indians living within their
limits, many of them students in the large universities, and there
were many other Indians who were in North America with legit-
imate travel and study permits absorbing American industrial tech-
niques.

I was most pleased that, when informed by the India Office of
His Majesty's Government that attempts to assassinate him might
be expected and some of the plans were already known, Churchill
at once asked for my return to him.

Very soon I saw him again. We were both delighted.

"So you're coming with me, Thompson? I'm more than glad!"
He looked it, too.

This was fine. But the first difficulty was the money. Winston
had no official position and in no way represented the Crown. The
situation grew increasingly confused. Then it cleared up. Winston
was to pay all my personal expenses, while the police authorities
paid my salary. It was somewhat as if I were still chasing about
after the blackguard Mosley, only with two pleasing differences:
I liked the speeches better and I had an expense account.

Something happened about reservations. Winston won't ride on
anything but a British vessel if he can avoid it. But he couldn't get
berths for all of us (he was taking members of his family, too) in
time to meet his first early speaking dates, in and around New
York. There was a certain amount of interest by the American
radio, too, as early as that was 1931. Churchill wanted the money
and so had to make the unpleasant compromise of getting on any
ship that would deliver him in time to meet his contract.

He cursed and swore and banged his cane about when he dis-
covered to his great disgust that of all ships afloat, the only one
that would fit the situation was a German liner, the Europa.

My own hatred of Germans, which has now become patholog-
ical, was never up to Ms. Many have heard Winston in the midst
of his fulminating improvisations, assigning their true villainies to
Germany's generals, but no editor has ever been able to print any
of it.

In all truth, we had gorgeous accommodations, superb food,
fine companions, and service of a kind Fd never seen before, afloat
or ashore. I shall not pay the Germans another compliment and

104 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

am relieved here to report that I do not need to. But they can
ran a ship and I'll never say they can't. It is hard for a Britisher
to admit this, but it's true.

We were due to arrive in New York harbor about eleven o'clock
one morning. I got up before four o'clock, cleaned my revolvers,
reloaded them, and made a slight repair in my holster, a special
one that I made myself. With a gun in one hand and another one
on the dresser before me, I turned my attention to Churchill's
private arsenal. There was a great pounding on my stateroom
door. Outside it was pitch-dark of course, and a good sea lifting
and sinking beneath us. From such noise I thought we were at least
sinking. I ripped the door open and stood there half-dressed,
amazed, and loaded down with guns. Forty people stood right in
front of me, about ten of them women.

Who do you think they were? The American press!

"Where's Winnie?" "Get the Old Boy up for us, copper!" "We
want to see Churchill!"

All this without warning of any sort at all. Not a single request
had ever come to us that my charge was to be seen before we ar-
rived.

And I could not figure how they had got on board! I still had
a "mid-ocean" feeling, I hated the American press right then and
there and for a considerable time after, though we've made our
peace. But we didn't make our peace on this trip. They were in
all ways indecently adhesive, unbearably rude and thoughtless,
even cruel. I could not get used to it at all, and if they had
realized that we were just a couple of decent people, one of whom
had come to lecture and would be around for months, they would
have had much more material from us than they got.

It was my first experience with American newspapermen and
their manners. I suffered. But I think it was they, perhaps more
than Winston, who lost out They wanted copy and Winston, if he
never was anything else, is copy all the time. But the importun-
ings, lies and dodgings and the calculated insensitivity made him
ill. And it set my guard up and I never let it down once.

They couldn't understand that I refused to wake Mr. Churchill.
Nor would they understand I would say nothing about his trip or
its itinerary. Or what he planned to .talk about They knew where

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 105

he was to stay in New York and told me reporters and photog-
raphers were already waiting there, but that they themselves
had come aboard the ship many miles at sea with the pilot and
quarantine officers and that they did this every time anyone im-
portant was on Ms way in to visit the States. I thought it was a
terrible way to live and said so. I promised they would have a
chance to chat with Mr. Churchill but warned them it would be
brief and that I would under no circumstances think of knocking
on his door, hurrying Ms bath or breakfast, or disturbing his
peace in. any way. He's cross as a bear when his rising routine is
interfered with.

I went back into my own stateroom. There was a steward there,
making up the place with suspicious enthusiasm a steward new to
me. Suddenly I realized it was one of these clever American tricks,
and for a few seconds it worked, too. One of the reporters had
somehow found a steward's jacket and cap, and had slipped into
my quarters to look about or pick up information in whatever way
he might. He was no more German than I was. I just picked him
up under the arms, planted him hard outside my door and slammed
the door.

Later, after normal risings and a somewhat normal breakfast
(I warned the Churchflls to stay inside their suite), Winston met
the press in the lounge. Here there was a noisy but useful inter-
view, and a rapid exchange of questions and answers. They liked
their subject. The group went out on deck, where newsreel pho-
tographers ground away and held microphones close to his mouth
to catch what he said.

Churchill had a certain sympathy with it all that I didn't feel.
And even I calmed down a bit when I learned that this group
had been up all night (it was a horrible November day) and had
come out past Ellis Island to meet the ship far out, traveling in a
small and far from seaworthy launch.

We docked, were counted off and packed off in five different
cars. A half dozen celebrities and city officials were on hand to
welcome the great man. There was something too military about
it all. There was no warmth of welcome, and there was far too
much glint to the cordiality of it all. And several hundred police!
It seemed absurd.

106 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

Suddenly we were all in motion, all at the same time, and in a
whirling parade that rocked up Broadway with enough sirens to
waken the dead. It seemed a most awful way to get to a hotel. I
learned since that private individuals, if properly connected, can
receive this much attention and that the motorcycle escort is a very
common sight.

In the Waldorf-Astoria hotel we had a few hours of peace. I
was overwhelmed by New York the first time I could peer out a
window, and when off duty spent many hours looking at the im-
mensity of it immense in the vertical sense.

I had certain matters to go over with the police and with the
detectives who were on the hotel staff. Mr. Churchill seemed glad
to be rid of me for a time and said so. Mrs. Churchill was going
to take a short rest while her husband planned to run up Fifth
Avenue and call on his best American friend, Mr. Bernard Baruch.
I reminded Mr. Churchill that he was not allowed to do this alone,
irrespective of the time of day. He became very agitated with me
and in his determination to make this one call all alone, he was
supported by his wife. I looked out the window. The night had
come. America was friendly by habit. I gave Winston into the
hands of the local police, which I should not have done.

There is always a good deal of confusion about baggage.
Churchill's valet and I took care of most of this. I took care of
some more of the reporters who were living in the lobby. After
forty-eight hours without rest, I went to bed.

My telephone rang. It was Mrs. Churchill with the distressing
news that Winston had met with an accident and was in the hos-
pital. "The Lenox Hill Hospital/' Mrs. Churchill said. Naturally
I had never heard of such a place. I rushed to her suite and we
immediately went to the address.

This is what happens when police officers permit themselves to
do things contrary to their own best judgment. Never once in my
entire life had I allowed one of my charges to tell me what I was
to do or not to do. But this time, because of their insistence, and
perhaps influenced psychologically by my own newness to Amer-
ica, I had allowed the Churchills to set their wish and judgment

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 107

over mine. And Winston had immediately got himself into a bad
accident.

I do think, because he was a private citizen and not an official
of the British government, that I had subconsciously permitted
certain leniencies and that I planned, though still subconsciously,
to give Mm more leeway than he'd received on any other trip or
tour with me. But no matter how it is looked at, there is no ex-
cuse for this, and I have never given myself one,

Fifth Avenue was, and I believe still is, the street in New York
on which his friend Barucbt lived at 1055. Fifth Avenue is a de-
light to walk upon, especially upon the park side. It goes for better
than two miles and a half and except for a few transverse road-
ways for passenger cars, a pedestrian never has to look for traffic,
He may walk in peace.

Churchill apparently rode most of the way, then started to cross
over. He isn't too much of a walker, as you have no doubt gath-
ered. But the night was so fine, and the invitation of the park's
unexpected size (Winston had not been in New York since his
strangely successful and most lucrative lecture tour at the con-
clusion of the Boer War when he barnstormed as a bit of a youth-
ful hero) these late autumn glimpses caught him and held his
attention. Being English, he forgot about the direction of American
traffic. It nearly cost him his life.

He stepped off the walk into the roadway, looking the wrong
way for traffic. He looked south. There was a screaming of brakes.
Then a shock of collision. Churchill was flung up and forward.
Then he crashed down heavily upon the asphalt pavement of Fifth
Avenue. He tried to rise, then fell back. He was unconscious, and
later semiconscious. Fortunately for him, and for us all, it was not a
hit-and-run driver who had knocked him down. It was a poor but
honest Italian American by the name of Mario Contasino, a taxi-
cab driver, who at the time was out of work. He helped Winston.
He was waiting still, and most nervously, when Churchill recov-
ered consciousness and there were many pleasant exchanges of
courtesy and appreciation.

At the desk, bleeding and covered with dirt, seeking admission
to the emergency section of fee hospital, an exasperating thing
happened Churchill was challenged, before he was given assist-

108 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

ance, as to his ability to pay the doctors. I suppose this is under-
standable, since Lenox Hill is a private institution, but the man
was bleeding all over the floor, he was in terrible pain, and the
extent of his injuries was unknown. Yet he had somehow to prove
Ms financial competence to meet bills not yet rendered in order to
get onto an operating table.

"I am a British statesman and friend of the King," he said
faintly. This got him some attention.

His accident was not publicly known until the next day. This
was a good thing. King George V, immediately on being informed
that Winston Churchill had had a bad accident in America, called
the hospital. Somehow this information went through the hospital
like the news of a new warden's appointment gets to inmates of
an old jail. I was on hand during these days, of course, and it was
lucky I was in the corridors at these particular hours.

An enterprising newspaperwoman had done what her colleague
had done two days before on the Europa only this girl, instead
of dressing like a stewardess, put on a nursing cap and came right
in* The ruse was too clumsy, but it was only one of a number.
After I threw her out of Winston's room, he took the call from
His Majesty, reporting that while he had been knocked about very
soundly, with a painful shoulder sprain and deep lacerations of the
face, chest, and nose, nothing appeared to be broken. He limped
for many days after his several days' confinement there.

Newspaper reporters hid in the laundry bins, in the wardrooms,
and came in wheeling loads of tea things, unordered. Some would
come in white jackets. All the chambermaids were suspect. And
outside Winston's door I had twice to propel people away, just
because their clamor of questioning was making it impossible for
the poor man to rest.

Once a load of fresh linen, unusually heavy and seeming to
move strangely when its attendant left it standing in the corridor,
revealed a reporter crouched inside, hoping to be wheeled right
into the sick room and there either to overhear something worth
sending his editor or to manage to chat with Churchill long enough
to say he'd seen the man first.

It would have been a good scoop. Winston got the scoop him-
self, this time, for while hoping for a good press in the United

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 109

States and Canada, he felt he would surely get it anyhow. The
accident had helped already. And he scooped the others by writ-
ing the story of his accident. Floral tributes supplied nearly every
patient in that whole nursing home, and while these were being
acknowledged by a clerical staff which was thrown together partly
by the hospital and partly by the hotel, Winston himself dictated
the story of what had befallen him on his first day in America.

He sold it to Collier's for about three thousand American dol-
lars, enough for him to take a rest trip to the Bahamas. Here he
painted and swam. One day, in Nassau, when nearly ran down by
a young Negro driving too fast, he leaped out of the way and
grabbed the top posts of a board fence.

This was the only time in my life that I have seen Churchill in
the clutch of old-fashioned fear. He shivered and shook. Sweat
poured down his face and darkened his cream colored shirt. It was
shock. It left him weak and shaking. It seemed almost malarial in
its symptoms. He was thinking, of course, of the accident he had
just sustained and survived. He looked rather piteously at me and
said: "They almost got me that time, Thompson."

Churchill could not start his tour without more rest. He was
advised to remain in the Bahamas for three weeks. It was a good
feeling (it always is for an Englishman) to see British soil again;
to be on it. It cheered him. And me too. In Nassau I was most
lucky to get into a game of soccer, the first I'd played since giving
up the game to spend my life with Scotland Yard.

Churchill and I saw our first rum runner, the fleet that was en-
riching and at the same time contaminating American life. We
later met the man to whom all of these particular cargoes of fine
whiskies were delivered. He seemed very civilized. He told me
that if either myself or Mr. Churchill wanted a drink at any time
in New York, to just ask any policeman where the nearest speak-
easy could be found. He gave me a card, not one of those that
suggested you ask for the ever-present and indestructible "Joe."
It had a phone number that we were to call for our order to be
delivered. (Later, back at the Waldorf in New York I used this
number to restock Mr. Churchill's modest supply and in less than
ten minutes, the man had come with "the goods." Very excellent

110 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

whiskies, too, and uncut It would not be possible to fool Mr.
Churchill about fine whisky, or champagne.)

We came back to New York to start the lecture trip. I shall
say little about it It is a poor way for a new man to become ac-
quainted with a new country. Too much travel, too much hurry
and not anything which the resident population would in any sense
call typical My first duty was to check all my firearms with such
authorities as could permit me to carry and use weapons in a state-
to-state tour of some length.

I took two or three guns to the New York Police Headquarters.
I told them who I was, and which guns were mine and which
Winston's. I thought I would procure licenses of some sort, to
cover us officially under any conditions.

"But nobody is permitted to carry firearms in the United
States," said this twinkling Irish captain.

"What about the five persons who were shot down by sawed-off
shotguns in Chicago only yesterday?" I asked. This charmed them.

"Oh, them." Then, "Chicago,"

"But right here," I protested. There had indeed been a daylight
killing of -remarkable enthusiasm right in the middle of 49th Street
the day before.

The group of New York police officers thought I was an un-
usual man and said so. They told me I could not have a permit
but that I should just go ahead and use the weapons I had brought
with me and do so on as economical and infrequent a basis as
possible. They said if there was shooting, to let them know and
they would do all that was needed in order to "square it."

I asked them how in the world all these shootings could be go-
ing on all round without the police knowing just which citizen
had a gun and which did not. It would seem to make their own
selection of suspects a far more difficult job than it is for Scotland
Yard. How would anyone, I asked, carry a gun without the police
having cognizance of it?

These police officers seemed to disbelieve that our methods in
Scotland Yard could possibly be as effective as I had stated but
they nonetheless seemed to take to me and offered to show me
something I had heard of only in the cinema the famous big-
city morning lineup.

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 111

That Is just what It was: a lineup. It is a milder form of the
third degree. Suspects, without the protection of solicitors, are
made to ascend a platform that is brightly illuminated as a stage
might be. There the suspect stands in the glare, alone and unsup-
ported. I saw sixteen such suspects stand there, nervous, some of
them obviously frightened, some sullen, and answer as best they
could an unceasing and often sarcastic list of questions as to their
whereabouts at such-and-such a time, what alias they were cur-
rently using, what they had been doing so close to the scene of
the strangling of so-and-so or the shooting of such-and-such a man
or woman.

The questioning was done into a microphone and the police
voices were all amplified so that the catechizing could be heard by
all. Few answers of any use ever came from the men in the lineup,
though they all protested their innocence from first to last. The
police would run them on and run them off at a good rate, per-
haps five to six minutes being the average. This gave to all the
detectives an excellent and unhurried opportunity to study these
crooks and suspects; to plant the image of these faces in the in-
dividual memory of every detective in the room so that in future
mixes with the law, the recognition factor would play its proper
part.

I am told the New York police are uncanny in their ability to
carry face impressions in their memories, even for years. This is
where it begins here at the morning lineup.

If the New York police are positive they have something on a
"hot" suspect and cannot draw this forth by the conventional
means of ordinary questioning, they told me in some detail of the
efficacy of the third degree and asked if I would care to accom-
pany them to see this system in physical application upon a recal-
citrant suspect a "tough guy." I know most of the methods of
torture in our present-day world and all those of the past. I said I
did not think justice would be any the better served by my watch-
ing the process of positive force directed against an unwilling
respondent. Any man alive unless his tormentors are watching
Ms suffering for nothing save the bestial enjoyment they extract
from it will sooner or later say what Ms interrogators want

112 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

to say; or say what he thinks they want him to. And it can have
much or nothing to do with guilt, degree of guilt, or total in-
nocence.

The New York police told me that I was quite mistaken about
this; that unless the criminal element respected the strength and
toughness of its enemy the hard fist of the average police officer
crime in America would be out of hand all the time. They re-
minded me of the case of the killer Lipschitz. I remembered most
of the details. And he was indeed a cool one. Lipschitz was in-
dicted for first-degree murder, then tried, convicted, sentenced^
and finally electrocuted in Sing Sing. And he had never flinched
about anything and had not even blanched or batted Ms eye when
he was given the Chair.

"He'll break before he takes the hot seat." This was the guess
among all the police officers who had had to deal with him, two
of whom were with me now. The American press carried many
columns of this and we heard versions at Scotland Yard. Lip-
schitz had been spectacularly calm.

In the deathhouse itself, after the very realistic skull-shaving
ceremony was over, and after Lipschitz was actually seated in the
Chair, waiting to be strapped, hooded, and waiting for the ser-
geant to slice the side of his prison trousers to apply and fasten
the electrodes, he was asked if he had anything to say. He smiled
impassively but said nothing. Then the sergeant who was doing
the slicing of the trousers let the trouser leg slip out of his fingers.
He picked it up, but it slipped once more from his light grasp,
Lipschitz looked at the guard, crouching on the floor at his side*
preparing him for electrocution, and said this: "Whaf s the matter,
Sarge, you nervous?" That was all.

The New York police admitted he was really tough. Some are.
But when I told them that killings in broad daylight on the streets
of London would be unthinkable and they asked me why, I said
that from all I could gather, in New York especially, if a killing
took place where others could see, the others all fled the scene. In
London they'd chase a culprit till they chased him down, many
outraged women joining in the pursuit. This seemed to amuse
the police oflicers a great deal.

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 113

I was struck by some of the Items about those who live in
North America that I think have not before been noted by other
visitors. The beautiful teeth of the average American and Cana-
dian. I think it may have something to do with the enormous
quantity of ice water they consume s though I know this sounds
unreasonable. Then, too, most of them had an unexpected pallor
of face, as if their circulation was bad, or as if they never saw the
sun, and there were caverns in New York City where this was be-
lievable. The intolerable noise wore me out. I could not sleep in
American hotels, though they were without exception splendid.
The fearful juxtaposition of squalor and elegance disturbed me
too. Yet it may be an interesting social commentary, at least on
city economics and municipal planning in American cities. The
London slum is not only vast but historic. A New York slum can
begin in the same square with the finest mansions. It can even be
adjacent. The only thing protecting the "high-liver" from the de-
pressed element is the building: his apartment, or flat, never the
neighborhood. This seemed particularly true along the city's rivers.

Everything in the States was "100 per cent American" and said
so, on the streets, on signs. Worse, even, than we were with "Buy
British" and "British, Therefore Best." Then the awful grind
Albany, Boston, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Louisville, Buffalo,
Detroit, Pittsburgh, I hate to think of it of three and a half
months of it. And people in mobs, never the individual American
face, or speech. Always the mass. Mr. Churchill's lectures averaged
4,200 persons and went from lows of three thousand to a few
highs of over eight thousand.

It was immensely lucrative for him and he neegsg. the money.
He always seemed to need money, but his expenses were quite
large. He "lived big."

I had to be continuously on the lookout for danger. Danger was
what had brought me. And there was some.

We got about seven hundred threatening letters. These we
turned over to the police of whatever city we were in. As you
know, Winston had a firm notion about India and this may have
beea the reason, though a poor one, behind the demonstrations of
the natives of India against Churchill. In Detroit these were
particularly bad. Churchill never in his life had a "color" sense

114 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

and the India problem in the Empire and Commonwealth had
nothing to do with color, no more so than the Sudan problem
or the Kashmir problem. But the Indian people in Detroit exe-
crated Mr. Churchill for the whole time we were there. I think he
gave one lecture. Our car was twice stoned, and filth was dumped
in our hotel once. I became more and more watchful and resent-
ful

Chicago was worse than Detroit. At the end of a lecture
perhaps in Orchestra Hall near the handsome boulevard in any

case Mr. Churchill was speaking privately to some admirers just

before stepping outside and into our rented limousine. The group
stood in the great lobby of the auditorium, near the glass entrance
doors. I am always close by. There were many Chicago detectives
located in various spots throughout (the police cooperation on
this whole tour was magnificent). A very correctly dressed Indian
(East Indian, not American) suddenly hurried through these
doors. His intention was to kill my man and you could see this in
his eye. But I was ahead of him with my gun out. I did not
fire, but merely walked forward to grab him. He spun round
like a top, and crashed into the glass door behind, actually
striking it with such force as to pass clear through the shattered
frame. And right into the arms of two American detectives stand-
ing between the supporting columns of the forecourt of this build-
ing. All of us got cut up a bit. The Indian's companion fled down
the street.

We were entertained in a beautiful suburb by the celebrated
editor McCormick, of the Chicago Tribune, America's "tough"
newspaperman. He was trying to smash up hoodlumism in his
city. There was no fear in the Colonel anywhere. While in Chi-
cago Winston and I rode almost everywhere in Colonel Mc-
Coimick's armored car. Chicago police urged this upon the
Colonel during his campaign to clean up his city. The car was
impregnable. And it brought comfort to me.

Gangster law was the law of Chicago. Quite by accident, while
seated in a hotel overlooking one of Chicago's busiest streets
waiting for Mr. Churchill to come out from a meeting, I witnessed
one of these typical Chicago killings. I heard the rat-a-tat of a
machine gun, a sound made universally recognizable by American

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 115

motion pictures. A man fell over dead not twenty-five feet from
the very table at which I sat. The inevitable black sedan swept
past, the inevitable grinning face leaning out. The victim twitched
once on the sidewalk, then became still. There would have been
quite a commotion in London. What followed had nothing at all
to do with courage courage being a universal quality, not na-
tional. I think it had something to do with civic attitude or com-
munity respect. What did the hundreds of passersby do? They
ran. They just ran. Of fright? I would think not. I saw little fear
in America, none in the American face. I believe they just didn't
want to get mixed up in it. I am told this is even true in American
cities right now, New York especially, where beatings in broad
daylight can actually occur on subway platforms without inter-
ference from the average American who is innocently on the scene.
This to me is appalling. In England it is positively unthinkable.
It sickened me.

The killing outside the hotel window and the public reaction
gave me an ill feeling toward municipal conduct that I have never
been able either to understand or to erase. It was a poor trip for
me, anyhow, the sheer speed and pressure of it, but this episode
ruined it

On our second visit to Chicago, I recounted this item to some
police officers with whom I was talking. In the group was a
gangster whom the police didn't "have anything on" at the time.
This gangster was a friend of the police and he was actually a
member of the infamous mob that committed the St. Valentine's
massacre. I can name him, if it is required. This kind of fraterniz-
ing did not seem amusing to the police of Chicago. It was routine.
They did not introduce me to the gangster as anything put on.
The two groups, the criminal and the police, associated, lived
side by side, even intermarried,

I was glad we could leave when we did. Before we returned to
New York, a reporter secured access to Winston's bedroom while
I was in my own room. Winston could not get rid of this importu-
nate man. He called me, but when I ran in Winston had already
thrown the reporter out of the room.

I do not know what newspaper he worked for but when he
landed at the other end of the hotel corridor, I feel sure he was

116 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

in poor shape to report anything save his contusions. I cannot
forgive America her newsmen's manners; at least I could not then.

But I was younger. It was my first experience with that side of
living, and on that side of the world.

Our trip was over. I was glad of it Winston had recovered fi-
nancially. We sent our baggage aboard the White Star liner
Majestic before going aboard ourselves, then slipped out the
servants' entrance of the hotel into a waiting car.

I was most grateful to get away from the twang and slang of
American speech. Of course, once aboard the ship, I found that
every stateroom in our whole section of the Majestic was occupied
by nothing but Americans! They were aE on their way to attend
the Grand National.

Finally I began to understand It. And some years later, to love
It

Upon saying farewell to Mr. Churchill, I reported at once to
Scotland Yard. For a year or two I again chased Communists, a
lot who seldom give you either a thrill or a fight They merely
lurk and mutter. I hated this beyond description. I could under-
stand most of the crooked thinking in the world and was paid to
anticipate its plans, but I could never understand why anyone
wanted to be a Communist. For one thing, they never took baths
and you could smell them in the dark. In England, in the early
and mid-Thirties, they were a pack of ruffians who were shrill and
illiterate, and they represented to me about the same kind of head-
ache the suffragettes had been to us all when I was a junior officer.
They were cheap. They were bungling saboteurs. They were Hyde
Park bores in the afternoon and they slunk around at night
pouring paint down pillar boxes, or defacing fences, or smashing
windows. They had no imagination and they had no guts. They let
air out of the tires of parked automobiles. They distributed hand-
bills. They catcalled. When caught, they always began their deten-
tion period by insulting the officers and always ended by whim-
pering.

I never encountered a Communist who was a man and com-
munism appears more and more to me as the disease tiiat over-

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 117

takes any nation when the central force that built the nation
begins to lose its manhood. Communism coold overtake England,
but it would take a long time, for England was a long time build-
ing. Its manhood has a weathering and a seasoning and a curing
that has taken fifteen centuries.

For awhile, I despaired of ever getting away from the endless
tedium of tracking down and bringing in one furtive nobody after
another. One morning it occurred to me that in all the years I
had served the metropolitan police, of which Scotland Yard is
headquarters, I had never asked for anything. Why shouldn't I
ask for transfer to other duty? Though my retirement and pension
were but a few years ahead of me at this time (I would have
served my full twenty-five years by 1936), I did not then have it
on my mind. I merely wanted to set about doing something inter-
esting. I had earned it.

Mr. J. H. (Jimmy) Thomas was my first assignment after
Churchill. He was tough and self-made. Being His Majesty's
Secretary of State for the Dominions he was of course "The
Right Honorable," but he was also the greatest cusser I ever
heard, including the Americans, and in half a dozen other ways
was a most agreeable charge. He loved sports, he was a fine
golfer and fisherman, an insatiable football fan. And he loved
horse racing, gambling, and card playing. His wife Maggie was
a servant girl when he married her (Tommy was an unschooled
engine driver himself), and they rose together in English life,
noisily and happily, Tommy himself to become a true intimate
of King George V. In a way, there was a good deal of the energy
and personality of Churchill in Thomas a rough-hewn column
but from the same quarry perhaps. Thomas rose from engine
wiper in a railway roundhouse to the British Cabinet with about
the same speed that Churchill got there. But what different routes!

I received a promotion and was detached from his service sud-
denly. England had a rash of visiting royalty, all with problems
great or small. Soon after the bloody and shockingly unnecessary
assassination of King Alexander of Yugoslavia at Marseilles, I
was assigned to his brother Prince Paul, a very decent chap who
loved golf and who played it well but preserved the dignity of
the Court even cm the tee, for he played in patent leather shoes,

118 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

fawn gloves, stiff collar, striped formal suit, and derby hat. I had
also intermittent duties with General Mannerheim, Prince Charles
of Sweden, and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia (now King Ibn
Saud). I believe the Crown Prince knew more about horses than
any living man. He picked every winner but one at Royal Ascot,
the first time he ever went to a race meeting in England. The
Duchess of Kent, being Prince Paul's sister-in-law, was constantly
about and the great love which Prince Paul felt toward the Duke
and Duchess' son, Prince Edward, brought much happy informal-
ity to the royal atmosphere wherever Prince Paul went. He also
lost all fear of being followed or hunted. His English was perfect.
So were his manners, both democratic and royal. His very first
sentence to me, when I had gone to a Channel port to meet his
ship, was characteristic of the man: "I hope I shan't be too much
trouble." He had shaken hands with me as if I were an old friend.

We were all under a shadow because of the death of King
George. Prince Paul was determined to walk in the funeral proces-
sion. After it was over, the new King, Edward VIII, and his three
brothers went to the Palace of Westminster to do homage to their
father. I waited in the great hall. The new King of England and
the three princes guarded the four corners of King George's coffin.
The Royal Standard and a jeweled sword lay across the top. I
remembered fishing in Scotland with Jimmy Thomas and the
King only two years before, and the King's concern that I had
caught so little.

And I thought of the pomposity of Lord Curzon, the most
mean-mannered of titled personages I had ever met, whom I had
also briefly served. "I'll have no detective sleeping in my house!"
he had roared, sending me off in the dark to seek a bed in Basing-
stoke, when I was guarding Churchill and Churchill was Curzon's
guest You never know.

King George was great as a man and his love was constant
Marquess Curzon of Kedleston was a boor and is already for-
gotten.

As I waited for Prince Paul, my mind moved to the remem-
brance of many others all simple, all great: Lord Birkenhead
(Churchill's best friend), Lord Beatty, and Sk Philip Sassoon. I
felt very privileged, even though I was just a cop.

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 119

After the long vigil was over and the new King and the princes
withdrew, I escorted Prince Paul back to Belgrave Square to the
home of the Duke of Kent I felt sad and old, and even though I
wasn't yet forty-five, I decided to retire when my time should
come. It was not far ahead. In the autumn of 1936, I took leave
of my colleagues, had the customary farewell dinner, received the
homage of my brother officers, made the proper acknowledgments
for the correct watch, and took leave of Scotland Yard forever.

Or so I thought at the time.

PART iiWO

I SAW Mr. Churchill from time to time, sometimes on a friendly
visit when I happened to be near his country place at Chartwell
and sometimes on brief business errands even though there had
been no official relationship since Ms lecture tour of the United
States and Canada had terminated five or six years before.

In April, 1939, I visited him for several hours at Chartwell
Manor, We went over the grounds that we had all labored so
hard to beautify. It was a labor well spent and though I got not a
single "thank you" in remembrance of the thousands of barrow-
loads of earth, rock and cement I had moved when he first bought
the place, I did not care. We talked of kings and their passing; of
nations and their collapse. It was exciting to see the man and to
hear Ms voice, his low meditative laugh.

We had a great laugh over the time I dropped a dollop of mud
on his pate. When you are digging out a swimming pool for your-
self, I am sure it is pleasurable. I felt, on one occasion at Chart-
well Manor, that I had had enough for the day. Winston and I
had lined the new bottom with bitumen, after much digging and
patching. My clothes had become smothered with mud. I decided
to have a hot bath, then resume my dignity and my office. I would
spend the rest of the day in seeing that no unauthorized person
entered the grounds.

A call came for the Old Man from London, and I had to take
the message out to the "dig." I put on my rubber boots and
walked over the lawn to Ms pond. Thick, slimy mud was every-
where. Adhesive mud. As I was walking about the top of a bank
looking for Winston, I stepped over a hole cut in the bank. In

123

124 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

doing so a large blob of mud dropped down into the cutting and
plastered the Prime Minister right on top of his ministerial head.
He was outraged.

"Dammit!" he screamed, looking up from the deep hole and
cursing some more. He had no idea who was above.

"Were you speaking to me, sir?" I asked, sounding a little out-
raged myself.

"I'm sorry, Thompson. I didn't know it was you. But if you
got hit by a clod of mud like this one, you'd swear as well."

"It's the Cabinet, sir. Calling from London."

"The Cabinet? Let the Cabinet convene this time at Chartwell!
And send for some more shovels."

He had other things on his mind, too. He could smell war then
and said so. He said to me flatly that we would be fighting the
Axis within six months. He said that inasmuch as he would prob-
ably be offered some sort of Cabinet post and that he would
therefore be obliged to have a shadow, he'd like to know what
plans I had for myself. I had of course been very busy with many
duties, some long, some brief, in the interval. I told him of my
retirement but I told him I'd be most honored to come back into
his service if he wished me to and if Scotland Yard felt I could be
useful in keeping the Germans away from him if it came to
that. Suddenly, in thirty seconds, I wanted to serve Winston
Churchill all over again.

The thought of war was sickening to me. I had seen one. But
if we faced another, I had three sons who would be serving. In
fact, my youngest son, an irrepressible adventurer, had already
joined the Air Force. And he was not yet sixteen.

Events moved with silent speed, much faster than English plans.
Poland and Czechoslovakia were about to be bitten off and
chewed up by the Axis, and this would surely start it. It was the
middle of August following my happy visit with Churchill at
ChartweE. Churchill had been in France. He'd toured the Maginot
Line. There was a cryptic telegram for me to be at Croydon
Aerodrome the following day. I could not get anything more than
that from his secretary. So I went there.

Driving back to London, after we passed the time of day talk-

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 125

ing about each other's minor family affairs, Churchill told me that
he'd spent a great deal of time with the President and the Premier
of France, and with many of their military leaders and that the
only thing of interest that he could profitably pass on to me was
that the Germans already considered him the most attractive tar-
get in England, more so by far than the King, or than the entire
Cabinet. He said the French had told him that there were known
plans to kill Winston, whether he rose to importance in the com-
ing struggle or not Mr. Churchill rather enjoyed the implied
heroics here as always and when I asked him if he had plans for
meeting this dark prospect, he turned most cordially to me and
said: "Yes, I have one very good one and it's you, Thompson.
You look after me at night and I'll take care of myself in the day-
time."

I reminded him that I had retired from the metropolitan
police force in 1936. He said my retirement was about as likely
as his retirement. He immediately told me then that there was
an advanced plan, though he did not know from the French police
whether its operatives were in England yet, to assassinate him at
the start of the struggle. He would be quite happy to pay me
himself, at his own expense, to protect him during the night. I
said I would start whenever he asked, but that upon my filing of
intention to retire, I had agreed to report for duty in the event of
any emergency at all. This is a common practice among all British
police officers. He said he would see to it and let me know.

How quickly things happen! That conversation was on the 23rd
of August. On the 26th of August, the state of emergency just
referred to was declared to be upon us. He called me on the tele-
phone himself. "Thompson, you are remaining with me perma-
nently/' he said. His voice carried a big smile of pleasure. "I
have just arranged this with your Commissioner, Sir Philip Game.**

There followed a furiously busy week, far more domestic than
martial. We spent the time lugging stuff back and forth between
London and Chartwell. Then suddenly the whole atmosphere of
our life in England and in very real ways life all over the world
changed to something different and, I truly believe, changed for-
ever. Churchill was taking all Ms weekends in London, Mrs.
Churchill too. Their flat was crowded with people, important ones,

126 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

even though Winston was "unemployed." He paced around a
great deal, anxious to run something, but no one had given him
anything to run. Not yet.

Then came the day September 3, 1939. There was no answer
from the ultimatum that had been sent to the German govern-
ment. We waited for eleven o'clock, grouped in clusters in the
Churchills' large, main living room. No one said anything. Mem-
bers of the Churchill staff, both clerical and domestic, stood in
doorways, waiting for the news. An upstairs clock chimed sweetly.
There was no traffic noise at all on London streets.

Then, over the BBC, came the news that we were at war.
Churchill did not appear in the least disturbed. Almost at once
there was an air raid warning. He bolted out of the room and into
the street. I learned a good deal more about him then and that
put me on guard once more against his impulsiveness. He could
no more stay out of a raid than he could sit still in a debate in
Parliament. I did not this time get tough with him because I was
not familiar with the sound, meaning, or expectable consequences
of these warnings.

The "All Clear" sounded. I walked through the streets to the
House of Commons where Neville Chamberlain spoke and Eng-
land's declaration of war became an official instrument. I jotted
down some of the things he said in shorthand.

"The House has already been made aware," Mr. Chamberlain
said, "of our plans. As I said the other day, we are ready." I
looked at Winston after jotting down this sentence. How he
squirmed. "This is a sad day for all of us and to none is it a
sadder day than to me." I felt most sorry for the man at this
moment. He seemed all through with life.

It is cruel to speculate on what would have happened if Cham-
berlain had been removed from authority a year earlier. Yet it is
inevitable that one should do so, for there was hardly an English-
man who was not sick over the beating our prestige had taken
when the Italians went into Abyssinia; when Eden's insistence that
we invoke sanctions was unheeded. And I'm sure many an Eng-
lishman felt we had betrayed the trust of gallant little Czecho-
slovakia and that Chamberlain had helped in this betrayal. Only a
few months before, in this very spot and at the same time of day,

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 127

he had said: "If I am right as I am confident I am, in saying that
the League as constituted today is unable to provide collective
security for anybody, then I say that we must not try to delude
ourselves, and still more we must not try to delude small and
weak nations, into thinking that they will be protected by the
League against aggression when we know that nothing of the kind
can be expected." And that was only the previous February!

Here he was now, still talking, but looking sick, looking nearly
dead. "Everything that I have worked for; everything that I have
hoped for; everything that I have believed in during my public
life has crashed in ruins."

I suppose Chamberlain really did believe he had worked for
peace his whole life but the tragedy too often in England's modern
history is that idealists have had to deal with rogues. Winston at
least was a realist and, in Ms eye, a rogue was a rogue and that
merely meant that it was something to be exterminated. It was a
horrible day.

I knew that Churchill would publicly support Chamberlain for
that was the stripe of his loyalty. And he did so, briefly. When
he could have charged every man in England for not heeding the
warnings of the times, he rose and quietly said: "In this solemn
hour it is a consolation to recall and to dwell upon our repeated
efforts for peace. All have been ill-starred, but all have been
faithful and sincere."

We stepped out into the street. * 4 We are going to Ten Downing
Street, Thompson," he said bluntly. I did not know, nor he, what
Cabinet post would be offered.

As you all know, it was the Admiralty. Mrs. Churchill had ar-
ranged for a delightful luncheon party of twenty-four. It took
place, but I think it took less than ten minutes. So began another
long thrash with daily living that had less schedule than a forest
fire and less peace than a hurricane. Through the years I have
wondered a thousand times how the wives of famous men could
endure the almost unvarying sinashup of all their pleasant plans
for just a little life of their own; just one quiet undisturbed tea
party; one unbroken trip to Scotland; one meal without a phone
call; even one good-morning kiss not witnessed by waiting cour-
iers. The mere matter of menus must be the most awful madness!

128 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

But Mrs. Churchill never showed that she was troubled though
circumstance and disappointment have slashed her a thousand
times and more. The capacity of the British to endure is not the
gift of their men but their women. At least the men have the satis-
faction of ordering all manner of elaborate escapades like world
wars and cheerfully enough getting killed in them. But the women's
plans get killed without battle: killed on the stove; killed over
the teacups that are waiting to be filled without the expected hands
to take them; killed in bedrooms where men are expected to sleep
but who call to say they cannot make it that night and who go
off and are never again seen. Some of our reticence conies from
this, the reserve of the men, but far more than that, the self-pro-
tective circumspection of the women.

Within twenty-four hours of taking over at the Admiralty,
German U-boat warfare had its first big trophy. The Athenia was
torpedoed and sunk, with 1,400 aboard, including some Ameri-
cans. It was a sad initiation to Churchill's naval duties.

The British press was around all the time. I kept cautioning
them about pictures. It is of the greatest importance that men
guarding the lives of other men are themselves as little known
and little publicized as possible. We arranged that I would seldom
be included in any of the shots, that if my picture were to be
published by accident, I would always be unidentified or a
"passerby," or not mentioned at all. We kept a good mixture of
miscellaneous nobodies around him and often made casual but
seemingly positive identifications of people whom we did not at
all know ourselves. This scattered the risk and kept an important
flow of anonymous beings in continuous parade. I do not have
any remarkable or memorable physical features except that I am
somewhat taller than the average Englishman, so when I found
myself identified or characterized as 'looking like a schoolmaster"
I .was pleased enough, for it meant nothing. And that is the way
Scotland Yard would prefer it.

From this day through my long years of service to Winston
Churchill to the very end, it does not seem I ever for one night
had enough sleep. It has been my lot to go through life worrying
about another man, losing sleep over it But it has been Churchill's

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 129

destiny. And Ms worry, being for whole continents, was some-
what larger than my own.

We found time, especially at first with the war going, to re-
acquaint Winston with firearms. He carried his own pistol now
and we had a target range in the basements of various buildings
as well as one in his own house. Familiarity with weapons is more
than half of their protective potential; having the feel of them in
one's hand and forearm, the sense of the weight of them and their
position on one's person helps make action almost reflexive if
their use is required. One seldom has long to deliberate when one
is going to shoot. Winston knew all of these things from the past,
but there was one thing now that the man had grown older
that made his own security more difficult. His sense of personal
safety had largely left him, to the extent that he would tire of
carrying Ms revolver and forget it. He'd lay it down somewhere
and leave it if I didn't check it each time. Sometimes when I
found him unarmed, I'd have to give him one of my own revolvers.
I didn't like to do tMs, and didn't often have to. I'm very used to
the few that I work with, but it was of course absolutely essential
that he should not be alone at any time even in the middle of the
night in his own bed without a revolver in his reach. He knew
tMs but Ms excitement about danger had changed from the chem-
ical to the intellectual. I had to watch him all the time. He would
draw his gun and pop it into sudden view and say roguishly and
with delight: "You see, Thompson, they wiU never take me alive!
I will get one or two before they can shoot me down." He hated
to be criticized (though he would grudgingly take it sometimes
after elaborate thought) and the times I had to fling my body
against Ms or grab him and toss him behind a post or truck or
pile of rubble, the protests that went up!

During my previous years of service to him, I had always
looked upon Winston Churchill as a man of endless energy and
rash courage. How was he now? Eighteen years had passed it
stunned me to make the calculation since we had first gone
through the Mediterranean together. But from all sides the same
report came to me: that Winston was physically durable to an
unbelievable degree (this from Lord Moran, his physician) ; that
Ms faculties of hearing and eyesight were of the keenest. His op-

130 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

tician told me Winston's eyesight was better by far than the sight
of the average man ten years his junior. I was glad for these
things, for it improved his own capacity to protect himself from
surprise. And his colleagues in the Cabinet, each in his own way,
kept referring to his genius, to his electric judgment. It was ap-
parent, according to the British monitor on the German broad-
casting stations that Churchill, far more than the full navy of
which he was First Lord, was Hitler's enemy, his real bugaboo,
his target Hitler's rages, over and over again, testify to this very
thing. It of course delighted Winston and doubled his pleasure in
thinking of new names to call this little Nazi. Never to be treated
with respect, as heads of government, did more to kindle the psy-
chiatrical hatreds and rages against Churchill that both Hitler and
Mussolini felt than did the fear of either one of these dictators,
even at the very end of things, that the Axis was going to lose the
fight Their hatred was insensate and progressive, and I would
think it had, finally, a truly depleting effect on their powers; sap-
ping energies they could not spare; wasting these men instead of
inspiriting them. It showed their fear too. I have been told since
the war, by a British agent who was close to Mussolini's Cabinet,
that when Churchill's lovely phrase "tattered lackey" was de-
scribed and explained to the Duce that this very nearly unhinged
the man on the spot. Locker-Lampson could do it, too; his taunt
that "his heart and his head were both of lard" made Hitler foam
at the mouth and chew the carpet.

With typical directness Churchill set about seeing what kind of
navy he had been given. Almost before he had installed a work-
ing staff in the Admiralty, he set out to inspect the major naval
installations of the British Isles, starting with Chatham.

On the docks there, he was instantly recognized and cheered.
One happy re-encounter took place when the master machinist,
who had been entrusted with the repair of the sabotaged section
of the press machinery when Churchill was Ms own editor-in-chief
of England's only newspaper during the General Strike, recalled
the incident to Winston. Winston loved this moment of remi-
niscence. There was never much time for such, however, and as we
pulled away with shouts going up to him and enthusiastic cheers
of "Good old Winston!" he was already in the chartroom of the

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 131

cruiser that was hurrying us to Scapa Flow, the main base of the
Royal Navy.

The same enthusiasm met us there, and it was somewhat en-
riched by Ms being able to report, as we had received it in code
going through the Minches, that we had knocked out a pair of
U-boats. On arrival at Thurso we embarked on a tribal destroyer
for Scapa. Here we had to pass through the boom defenses, which
occasioned a remark from myself as to whether it would not be
possible for a German U-boat to follow us through the net, her-
self concealed by our own bottom, and the sound of her concealed
by the turn of our own screw. (Later we lost the Royal Oak
here, you will recall.) "I hope they are not able to do so,' 5
Churchill told me. "I am informed the possibility of their enter-
ing is very remote."

Churchill complained about much that he saw here at Scapa.
There was little or no ack-ack to fight off air raiders momentarily
expected from Germany, who punctually arrived while we were
there. Of course Winston knew that at such an early stage of such
a grievous war everything cannot be ready at once. But what a
position for a man of his calibre to be in charge of the finest and
largest navy in the world knowing too bitterly how he had advo-
cated through the years that this country should arm and that
these very guns should be part of her weaponing to find this
huge naval base practically undefended from the air!

Over and over again, all through the years with Winston
Churchill, he has turned his head over toward me, looked up and
growled: "If they had only taken the warning when they got it!"
Or "I pointed this out four times to the Prime Minister!" Or "One
gets tired having to reiterate such a simple thing to the Ministry."
He was furious here. He fumed and semaphored but ten days
later the guns were there.

Before the end of that same month the First Lord had visited
the other big installations at Portsmouth and Plymouth. At this
latter place I met for the first time Admiral Sir William James,
K.C.B., an unforgettable navy man. Americans may be able to
place him quickly when I say that this is the jovial and enthusiastic
naval officer who is the original of the famous painting Bubbles.
Here we boarded H.M.S. Victory as well as H.M.S. Queen

132 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

Elizabeth of Dardanelles fame, winch was being rebuilt internally.
There were some appalling wrecks tied up and supported by
pontoons and a few laid bare in drydock that were surviving vic-
tims of the Germans' effective campaign against our shipping. We
were getting cruelly hurt every day all over the Atlantic and
throughout the Mediterranean.

We had an overwhelming advantage in terms of floating ton-
nage in our merchant marine fleet but Churchill never let anyone
sit still in comfort on this statistic, insisting that it became less
meaningful with the passing of every hour. I shall not burden the
reader with anything but the swiftest of figures in this book, but
our advantage (Great Britain's alone) in merchant tonnage was
twenty-one million plus over a tonnage of thirteen million plus
for Japan, Germany and Italy combined. Later, the participating
of other merchant fleets from our Allies, as we drew them, dou-
bled our original total. But we never had enough. However, with-
out this early margin we could not have won, and of course we
almost did lose. More than half of the world's tonnage was de-
stroyed before the horror ended, most of it by submarine or air
attack, and in less than five years.

We were on way to Scapa Flow, going through storm clouds
near the Orkneys when we got the sad word that we had just lost
the Courageous with six hundred dead. Churchill thereupon began
making notes that would soon be heard in the House of Com-
mons upon the British public's need to be ready for bitter news,
and much of it, regarding losses of men and ships. By this time
there was already a colossal movement of ships. The German
High Command was simultaneously laying claim to the sinking
of the Ark Royal and so certain were they of the truth of this that
they had already conferred the Iron Cross upon Lance Corporal
, Franke, who said he had sunk her, when actually he had never
seen her.

We sat down in the water at Scapa Flow. Churchill surveyed
the placing of his ack-ack, then fired a round at a target balloon.
About the huge anchorage there were mockups of battle wagons,
big as the ships themselves and so true to the illusion of the real
thing that not only could they not be taken for fakes from a

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 133

height of a thousand feet, they could not even be taken for fakes
when one was right on them.

Yet here I had another dramatic demonstration of the uncanny
eyesight of Winston Churchill, and the speed and practicality of
Ms brain. He pointed to the impressive fake battleship that was on
the far end of the northern string and told one of the warrant
officers that it would be spotted by German pilots as a dummy
and that they would not waste a bomb on her. "But she's not even
been spotted by our own reconnaissance, sir/' he was told. "Then
they need spectacles!" "How so, sir?" "No gulls about her!" he
snapped. "No seagulls. You'll always find gulls about a living
ship. But not around a dummy. Not unless you drop garbage for
the dummy too. Keep garbage in the water day and night, bow
and stern, of all these dummies! Feed the gulls and fool the Ger-
mans!" And they did.

What other man in the British Navy would see this and fix it
with such speed?

It is noteworthy, in view of the attack made by the Germans on
Russia in 1941, to recall the words of V. M. Molotov. Addressing
the Supreme Council of the Soviet Union, he accused Great
Britain and France of waging ideological war on Germany, saying
that after the collapse of Poland the democracies found new
excuses for continuing the war which, he asserted, Germany was
striving to end. However, this speech in the main did hof lend it-
self to help Germany in any way, and because of its tone a con-
siderable amount of disappointment was felt in Berlin.

October opened with a review by the First Lord of the work
carried out during the month of September by the Navy. Speak-
ing of Russia, he mentioned that she had pursued a cold policy of
self-interest, but in some respects her interests fell into the same
channels as those of Britain and France. Continuing, he said: "I
cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapt in
a mystery inside an enigma: but perhaps there is a key. That key
is Russian national interest/'

This appears to be of special note, for events proved that when
Mr. Churchill said that in some respects the interest of Russia and
Great Britain fell into the same channels, he had undoubtedly

134 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

made a clever forecast. His general survey of world events created
worldwide interest, and American reaction described Churchill's
speech as being worth more than an Army Corps. In his speech,
and in many which followed during the full course of the war, Mr.
Churchill coined a phrase which will go down in the annals of
history: "Now we have begun. Now we are going on. Now with
the help of God, and with the conviction that we are the defenders
of civilization and freedom, we are going to persevere to the end."

The horrible and most feared thing of all had happened after
we left Scapa Flow. H.M.S. Royal Oak was sunk. My mind
went back to the question which I put to the First Lord when we
were passing through the boom defenses in early September.

It is a terrible humiliation for an Englishman to take when one
of her finest battleships is sunk at her own moorings! It is not at
all the kind of outrage and fury and in a sense the healthy revenge-
seeking which the Americans, far sooner than they dreamed, were
to feel when the Japs slid over the Pacific and bombed the fleet at
Pearl Harbor. That will remain forever as the most ignominious
action in naval warfare, ancient or modern. But England was at
war against Germany, and the Royal Oak was a ship of war. All
we could feel was a sickening sense of carelessness, something
monumentally un-British and unprofessional in our own handling
of an instrument in the superior use of which we had proved our
skill to the whole world for three hundred years and more nay,
even from the day King Henry VIII designed and built the first
fighting fleet and put men aboard who knew how to fight.

But the terrible truth was that a German U-boat, commanded
by a young captain named Prien, had penetrated the defenses of
Scapa and torpedoed this great battleship. How much easier to
bear it would have been if we could have found that she had
been blown up internally, or even from the air since our ack-ack
was so newly installed. But we had been magnificently outwitted
and unbelievably scuttled in our own dock and without a shot by
a great skipper.

Winston now had to go back to London and tell the House of
Commons that what they most dreaded to hear was true. He
spent hours talking to men who were aboard the Oak when she
was hit and he spent hours looking at the ruin of her. Then he

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 135

turned Ms back on the whole thing and we returned to London.
Here he warned Parliament that this was only the start of an un-
ending number of casualties, that many of them would be worse;
that some would be catastrophes in the most awful magnitude.
And he ordered the main part of the Royal Navy out of Scapa,
not chancing further losses till defenses could be overhauled. The
fleet accordingly was scattered, much of it going to Greenock.

On the train going back to London, he had drafted what was
presently to be made public, the mutual assistance pact signed
soon after by Great Britain, France and Turkey. This instantly
aroused unexpectedly savage comment from Hitler who hated to
have anything happen that threatened to slow down the flow of
good news hourly being reported to the German people. But
Churchill, while a nimble enough improvisor, was and is a long-
term planner. He knew then that we would almost lose the war
before winning it; that we'd hang on till we did win. He wished
he knew how long the period of most critical suspense was going
to last so that he could prepare the necessary words and examples
to encourage the British people, that they might the better endure
the period once they were in it.

We visited the fleet at Greenock. He boarded H.M.S. Nelson.
He stayed aboard for four days. While there the plans for
strengthening the defenses of Scapa were completed. I enjoyed the
rest and the relief, and spent some happy hours in the W.O.'s
mess with a group of fine young warrant officers.

This completed, we drove back to London. H.M.S. Nelson had
steamed off immediately after, and even before we ourselves were
at our desks and stations, we got word that the Nelson had struck
a mine and was badly damaged, killing a great number of the
crew and officers including four of the young officers with whom
I had just been drinking beer and playing cards.

The third week in October Churchill became a seven day a
week man with an average weekly total of 120 working hours.
His peacetime average is about ninety-five.

Events moved forward, Warsaw had surrendered. An invading
force estimated at more than a million and a half Germans, sup-
ported by overwhelming ak power, had blitzed this agonized
nation during the first ten days of attack, though Warsaw resisted

136 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

to the last grenade and trench knife. The incredible speed of the
German convergence alarmed the Russians, who invaded Poland
from the East. The two governments now divided this ruined and
wretched nation. The Baltic countries concluded pacts with Rus-
sia. Finland held firm. The American Neutrality Act, which had
so disturbed the British government in October, was amended
repealing the embargo on arms to belligerents and the sale of
weapons and instruments of war was put on a cash-and-carry basis.
This heartened all of us, Winston particularly. He beamed and
yelled when the news came. He wanted his government to pur-
chase anything that could be thrown at the enemy and that would
explode on contact.

Russia was expelled from the League of Nations for going after
Finland. It was already a very dirty war.

At this time Mr. Churchill began to commute by air to France.
British Headquarters at Amiens were under command of Lord
Gort. But it was of course imperative for Churchill to spend much
time with the heads of the French Navy. First conferences in-
cluded innumerable meetings. Some were quite funny, when Mr.
Churchill decided to unleash his Harrow and Sandhurst French at
M. Campinchi, Minister of Marine, and Daladier, Darlan, Gamelin,
Vuiliemin, Champetier de Ribes, Rio and others I can't remember.
There were a few snatched moments that were pleasant for Mr.
Churchill, since he was a frequent if brief houseguest of the Duke
of Windsor then resident in Paris.

At Amiens we were close to the front lines. An air raid warning
signal went off suddenly and from the yard of the chateau which
served as headquarters could be seen a mixup in the sky between
a whole swarm of Germans engaging an equal number of French
and British planes. It fascinated Winston. He lay down in the
grass the better to see it. He was therefore overlooked by a cluster
of running orderlies whose duty it was to shoo us all inside where
it was supposedly safe. Winston saw what they would do to him
if they found him, so he stepped around a hedge till they had
themselves taken cover. Then he enjoyed the show.

On this trip Churchill became privy to the daring plan (not the
first) to assassinate Hitler. I knew somewhat of it. It was inge-
niously and coldly put together by British foreign agents, just a

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 137

pair of them, who had lived for many years in France and Ger-
many and could pass for very nearly any sort of European they
wished. They could speak anything and were known to us at
Scotland Yard as masters of disguise, Alas, it came to naught,
and it is painful in the extreme to consider what the earth might
have been spared in waste of treasure and agony of body and
spirit had these two succeeded. But they were never again seen
when they departed from their starting place in northern France.
It was reported much later that they had been arrested and that
they died wretchedly after long interrogation.

The Germans have always had their own special brand of cour-
age but it has always seemed to me an individual affair. Captain
Prien who sank the Royal Oak is a good example. But there is no
basic courage to German thought, nor in the pervasive mood of
the German people. Their main instinct is servile, hence essen-
tially brutish, and what one man or one nation in war can at
times make noble by ennobling its purpose, the Germans can only
make obscene out of the filth of their motives and the hypocrisy
of their dedication. True, they will stand and die the same as any
other good soldier, but they do not honor their intelligence in their
soldiering, for they die when told to, never knowing why. Ger-
mans have been brought up to die without knowing the purpose
of life.

Churchill was sixty-three. He looked it too. But right there
chronology and performance parted company. Though he walked
with a conspicuous stoop and most of Ms hair had gone; though
he had patches of suet about his midriff and his cheeks were
pouchy; he was still rock-hard and tireless. And he exhausted the
French command with his ceaseless movement, his demanding
tours, his perpetual questioning. The French felt an odd safety in
all this whirl and flurry, and they should have, for very little was
passing unseen.

This was evident upon our return to London in early Novem-
ber. He made a statement on the war at sea. It was at once terrify-
ing, yet heartening. It turned attention away from the land war in
France which was at this time almost melodramatically hopeless.
His speeches had a massivene&s, grandeur, defiance and cosmic
challenge that rallied the average Britisher and scalded Hitler.

138 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

Has anyone ever used a simple word with greater effectiveness
than Churchill? Did he calumniate Hitler? No, he never did. He
called him "that wicked man" and left him there, exhibited for
the whole world to see.

And he was showing more and more foresight, in his concep-
tion of things to come, and the way they might arrive. He was a
tonic to England in this early breakup. More than any other man
by action, speech, spirit, and proof of purpose, he prevented peo-
ple from surrendering to the contagion of bad news, which was
constantly deteriorating. Without question, he was the number
one propagandist for England's cause, and France's too.

In a radio broadcast over the BBC, he said that the Soviet
government, embodied in the formidable figure of Stalin, had
barred once and forever all Nazi attempts of an advance in the
East. He foreshadowed the coming attacks on Belgium and Hol-
land and predicted them within a week of their occurrence. When
his prediction was later challenged on grounds that the Nazis had
given solemn guarantees to Holland and Belgium, he said at once:
"That explains why the anxiety in these countries is so great." In
the main burden of his formal address that night, and speaking
for the Dutch and the Belgians, he had this word for them: "Let
them take courage, amid the perplexities and perils, for it may
well be that the final extinction of a baleful domination will pave
the way to a broader solidarity of all the men in all lands than
ever we could have planned if we had not marched together
through the fire."

At the end of this, I walked with him to his car and prepared
to take my usual place beside the driver. He had no companion
with him that night and asked me to sit with him, as he had some
instructions for me. He is wonderful company right after a speech
(he's hell when one's on the way), and he had heard earlier
that same evening that Mussolini's intention to "colonize" Libya
was resulting in the arrival there of large contingents of peasants,
all of w r hom seemed remarkably suitable for military service in at
least three of their attributes: age, sex, and physical condition.

"Thompson, you were with me when we heard that Badoglio
was in Libya."

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 139

"Indeed, sir. It was on a balcony of the Semiramls Hotel that
you received the information."

"It looks like we may have to go back."

"Go back, sir?"

"Yes. The Italians like the place. We'll soon be fighting in
North Africa."

"What with, sir?"

"I don't know yet, Thompson. Ill have to take Inventory first
thing in the morning!" And he laughed!

England was in a gray mood. The six o'clock news every night
was listened to as if by royal proclamation, and the driblets of
favorable items were never blown up to be more than the driblets
they really were. The Admiralty was embarrassed not only by
continuous losses but by threats of new ones that could not be
prevented. One of these threats was from mines. The Germans
were dropping them from planes, and they were at first bobbing
about and dotting entrances to harbors and rivers. Then there
came the magnetic mines which lay on the ocean's floor, not deep
(all the waters about England's south and east coasts are shallow) ,
and popped up against any hull that was passing. This was an un-
commonly effective weapon and hurt us badly.

It therefore became the first duty of the Admiralty to capture a
magnetic mine intact, in order to study it and figure a remedy,
perhaps even a way to inactivate It as it lay on the bottom. Or a
way to keep It from rising.

Fortunately for us, on November 23, a mine was dropped by
Nazi parachute into the Thames Estuary, but wind drift carried
the chute to the shore and the mine landed harmlessly on the
beach in the mud. Naval experts carrying their lives in their hands,
Winston carrying his authority and all the curiosity of a youngster
on a treasure hunt, and finally me, with the revolvers and quite
backward about the party, examined this mine, ascertaining its
nature. It was with formal tenderness and huge respect deactivated
and shipped to Portsmouth for more extensive autopsy. Its inter-
nal mechanism, which caused it to rise to the surface under mag-
netic influence when a steel hull passed above, was satanically
clever. The best section of German inventive brainpower had
worked on this one. However, the Senior Service quietly came out

140 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

on top, and found that though they could not come up with any-
thing against the mine itself, they could nullify the target herself.
They found that by degaussing the ships, magnetic attraction ter-
minated. The mine merely stayed on forever wherever it had
settled.

No sooner was this good news permitted to be enjoyed by the
public than some American newspaper of more enterprise than
circumspection printed our discovery in the greatest detail for the
whole world to look at. And we were, of course, thereby obliged
to publish the details ourselves. This was a most wasteful and re-
grettable leakage. One is less cautious, to be sure, when the war
is so far away, especially if it is being fought by others.

Somewhat the same sort of advantage that the noncombatant
has over the combatant came up on a larger scale at this same
time. While Russia invaded Finland, Germany remained an in-
terested spectator. But President Roosevelt condemned in the
most scathing terms this cannibal action of Joe Stalin's. Churchill
had to content himself by expressing his "regret" at the action.
However, the aftermath came when Finland allied herself with
Germany in her attack on Russia in 1941. It would now appear
that Russia's various moves were well thought out; for by this
attack on Finland and other bites into Poland and the Baltic
states, Russia was building around herself buffer states which
would be of great advantage when she was later attacked by Ger-
many. Following President Roosevelt's denunciation, the U.S.A.
ceased to supply Russia with aircraft. However, by 1941 and
1942, America made a huge effort to supply Russia with all the
aircraft she desired.

In late November we had news that an aimed liner, the Rawal-
pindi, had sighted and instantly joined battle with the German
warship Deutschland. It was probably the hope of the 'PindFs
skipper to draw the Deutschland a bit nearer to a strong British
force where more serviceable salvos might be aimed at the Ger-
man, but he failed in this maneuver and took such a beating as
to be nearly blown out of the sea. However, the British public
was so starved for something good for a change that it had to
take solace in the dash and daring of the Rawalpindi captain

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 141

since without armor and with light guns lie still did not hesitate
to go after anything in the German navy.

The U-boat menace was worse than ominous. Churchill re-
alized he once more had to stiffen the inind of his country and
spoke in the House: "I must again repeat the warning which I
have given to the House last month that a steady flow of losses
must be expected, that occasional disaster will occur, and any
failure on our part to act up to the level of circumstances would
immediately be attended by grave danger."

We bitterly needed help of every kind; of almost any kind. It
was almost smothering therefore to the average Englishman when
he read in his paper what the American Ambassador to Britain
had just said about the war. Speaking to Ms own countrymen in
the city of Boston on December 10th, Mr. Joseph Kennedy had
said and was quoted in all the British papers as saying: "This is
not our fight. There is no place in the fight for us."

This was far more shattering to us in England than it can ever
be made known to Americans and there is no reason to dwell
upon it now, but for the fact that Kennedy was loved by England
and taken to its heart by the great mass of our population as an
ardent supporter of our cause more deeply so than any other
American I can name. There have been Americans, Baruch, for
example, who have been greatly loved by England's leaders, but
few have been loved by the multitudes. We all thought, and felt
we had a right to think, that anything Kennedy could do to help
our country would surely be done. What he said in Boston nearly
crushed us. Affection and illusions of affection that were lost then
have never returned. Ambassadors have strange powers often
with the power of personality being far more important than
protocol or portfolio.

Then quite suddenly, an unexpectedly good thing happened to
us. And very dramatic it was. Winston ran around the Admiralty
as if he were running the war all alone and we started putting out
releases on the naval action in the Atlantic in which the Exeter,
Achilles and Ajax had hunted down and brought to shooting
range the sleek and slippery German pocket battleship Graj Spee.
The Graf Spee had been cruising about in the North and South
Atlantic in the guise of a commerce raider, sinking a heartbreaking

142 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

tonnaee in merchant ships. Winston's office had spent hundreds
of hours In plotting, tracking and outthlnking the fast-minded
skipper of this amazing killer, but so far from being found and
cornered, she was almost never even seen. But there was a flat
standing order to find and destroy her. It was a bit like a flat order
to harness the sun but such orders are not unknown in wartime
and with Churchill around are quite expectable.

News of the fight was received in England with acclamation.
When it became known that three small cruisers had been able to
throw enough stuff into the Spee to damage her and slow her up,
it was obvious to our Navy-conscious island that careful plans
had been put into operation. It subsequently came out that Com-
modore (now Admiral) Sir Henry Harwood had drawn up these
plans with the captains of the other two ships so that they were
able, by concerted action, to unify their separate powers in a con-
certed succession of telling licks. The Exeter took the brunt of thk
attack, but the three cruisers chased the Spee, popping shells at
her clear up to the neutral line of Montevideo harbor. It was not
possible to tell just what damage had been inflicted, but severe
damage could be assumed since if she had been able to stand and
fight, she could have blown the cruisers to pieces.

Our own ships were badly hurt. The Ajax had two out of her
four turrets knocked clear out. The Exeter, which took most, had
been hit more than fifty times, had three of her eight-inch guns
smashed, and had suffered over one hundred casualties. But they
felt they weren't through with the Graf Spee and stayed on like
hostile dogs in an unfriendly yard waiting for the scrap to resume.

You all remember what happened. I met and talked with the
officers and crews of all these cruisers after their return to Eng-
land (except for V-E Day the most gratifying, spontaneous and
moving celebration I have ever seen in England) and their dis-
appointment in not being able to finish the Graf Spee themselves
was still very much in their hearts. But you never know how these
things are going to come out. The subsequent scuttling seemed
an ignominious end but Captain Langsdorff had no other choice
than to sink his ship and shoot himself after Hitler by radioed
orders forbade him to surrender the vessel.

Because our own casualties were heavy, there were many heavy

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 143

hearts in England. But even while some of these grieved, there
was wonderful news for many others, for when the Graf Spec tied
up at Montevideo harbor she released a large number of prisoners
they'd captured from ships the Graf had sunk.

Hitler's order did not recognize the existence of the third alter-
native: to fight it out. German navies have always had some great
skippers, and here and there a great admiral, but Hitler did not
know clearly what a navy was for. So Captain Langsdorff, far-
away and not able to argue a point even if his ship could put out
and fight, carried out his orders. The Graf Spee struggled out of
the harbor, a scuttling crew boarded her, fused her magazine,
pulled her seacocks, and was on the way back to the river's
mouth when she exploded mournfully, shuddered, rolled and went
down. Unable to stand up to the disgrace, Langsdorff wrote his
report of the last days of the Spee, shook hands with his officers
and left. He went to the naval arsenal in Buenos Aires and there
in dress uniform, with his medals removed and placed in a box on
a ward table, he shot himself. There were people in England who
could forgive this man a good deal for he had saved the crews of
many ships and had immediately released his prisoners in good
condition six captains among them the moment the Graf Spee
touched land.

It was pleasant to listen to the BBC giving digests of what the
Germans were saying about the action. Naturally Goebbels, speak-
ing for the German government, had to find someone to blame.
But there was no visible culprit, so he blamed the Uruguayan
government for not giving the Graf Spee enough time to make
repairs. When this was exploded by wide publication of the ex-
tent of damage that had been inflicted on her, Goebbels changed
his story and said that the British had used mustard gas shells
when firing on the Graf Spee and that her captain had put into
harbor for fresh food, his own stock having been contaminated
by mustard gas.

The whole world rang with the news of this battle. Great
Britain was able a few weeks afterward to honor the crews of the
Ajax and Exeter, the First Lord being among those present at
Plymouth when the Exeter steamed into port She was brought in

144 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

by sirens and cheers the like of which I hadn't heard since 1918.
Vast crowds lined the docksides.

These are bad hours for me. All I can do in these situations is
stand near the Old Man and miss all the fun. That he should be
so idolized here among his own people at war meant that there
was equivalent fear and hatred of the same man among his
enemies. So I turned my back upon him, as I had in times past in
Cairo and Berwick Street when he stood for Westminster.

I was relieved when the launch came alongside and we put out
to the Exeter, Once aboard her and away from the mob, guard
duty would be simple. And so it was. The Exeter was in sad shape.
How she had straggled across the Atlantic I could not guess, being
no mariner, but she looked battered and drunken even where re-
pairs had started.

The crew of the Exeter, once their First Lord was aboard, went
crazy; at least as far as they are allowed to do so during wartime
and under the eyes of their officers. Churchill made a speech. It
does not matter what he said. I doubt if anyone heard. He'd utter
a sentence and they'd all go crazy again. Liquor of all kinds ap-
peared magically and was passed about, Winston plowing about
the decks and the smashed turrets in a rash of excitement, quaffing
from an enormous ale pot of some sort laughing, grinning, his
shoulders shaking, his head bobbing, his cap jaunty, his energy
shooting forth in all directions, great noises and Admiralty ges-
tures rising and exploding.

It was the same thing all over again when we boarded the
Ajcuc which was anchored in another part of the harbor.

Later that winter a large proportion of the crews of the Exeter
and Ajax came to London and marched from Waterloo Station
to the Horse Guards Parade. The streets were lined with a grate-
ful and dramatic crowd, thirsting for something to celebrate. Now
they had it. On the Horse Guards Parade there were His Majesty
King George VI, the First Lord and the inevitable complement of
Cabinet members, visiting celebrities from other nations and
people of uncertain origin. Meanwhile Her Majesty the Queen,
accompanied by Mrs. Winston Churchill, watched the proceedings
from the window of the First Lord's room hi the Admiralty. On
the parade itself was the biggest crowd I'd ever seen, cheering

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 145

Itself into frenzy as the crews of the cruisers, led by the Royal
Marines band, marched to the ground. There could be no doubt
as to what England thought of the naval fight in the South At-
lantic; and of the men who did it.

The crews were lined up. Mr. Churchill presented Captain
C M. L. Woodhouse of the Ajax and Captain F. S. Bell of the
Exeter to His Majesty, after which those who had been singled
out for honors were decorated by the King. (The Achilles was
already out again on sea duty, having been refitted, fueled and
reloaded.)

The most moving part of the whole spectacle was the moment
when, in complete silence, the widow of Marine Wilfred A. Rus-
sell of the Exeter came before His Majesty to receive the Medal
for Conspicuous Gallantry, which had been posthumously awarded
to her husband. Following this, Their Majesties, the First Lord
and Mrs. Churchill went to the saluting base where the men
marched past to the ringing cheers of the city. Then the group
proceeded to a quiet corner of the parade where stood the rela-
tives of those who had lost their lives. King George and Queen
Elizabeth stopped and spoke a word of praise and comfort to each
one.

The second half of the ceremony took place at the Guildhall,
at that time still undamaged. Four of the six captains who had
been released by the Graf Spec in Montevideo were there and
spoke. Most of England's famous men were in that hall that
day, but none received the ovations that were poured out upon
the sailors. When Churchill rose to say something, it was many
moments before he could be heard. Never again after that mo-
ment did I have any doubt we would lose the war, no matter how
close to it we might get

Churchill said; "It was not for nothing that Admiral Harwood,
as he instantly at full speed attacked an enemy which might have
sunk any one of Ms ships by a single successful salvo from its far
heavier guns, flew Nelson's immortal signal, of which neither the
new occasion nor the conduct of all ranks and ratings, nor the
final result, were found unworthy." Then his final words rang out,
and the noise that folowed split the Guildhall: "England expects
that this day every man will do Ms duty!"

146 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

At the conclusion of the luncheon, when Churchill left the hall,
there was such a press of people that there was difficulty getting
him into his car; or in getting the car to him. Half the population
of the British Isles seemed to pour out of that building and gush
down upon the Old Man. I saw it all coming and put myself be-
tween him and the avalanche. But they overwhelmed me in their
determination to shake hands with Winston. Sailors were in the
majority. Flashbulbs were going off, photographers everywhere.
Saving Churchill from his own friends was far harder than saving
Mm from the nation's enemies!

They wanted to pat him on the back and to pummel the poor
man, but at his age, even though his condition was so splendid,
no man can stand more than a certain amount of such good-
hearted thuds and thwackings and he winced repeatedly under
their enthusiasm. He was badly bruised from it, and I finally had
to use my elbows and knock about a bit to clear the path to his
car. I was cursed roundly for my roughness by all those who re-
ceived a piece of it, while two feet beyond the cheering was un-
diininished. However, they'd done their duty long before in dis-
posing of the Graf Spec and now I had mine to do, getting their
First Lord out of this riot while he was still upright. We just made
it. Both of us were badly bruised and I had two dirty cuts, from
the equipment that we permit our men to wear in full dress. I
wish, when we are so severe about everything else, we weren't
so elaborate about dress uniforms.

Office routine the next day was suddenly jolted when Churchill
found, on talking with one of the six captains released in Uruguay
by the Graf Spec, that perhaps as many as three hundred of their
crews were prisoners on board a German ship, the Altmark. This
same ship had been known for a long time in the British press as
a "hellship." Churchill said two words: "Find her."

Every ship, plane and submarine was ordered to assist in the
hunt. Because there were reports that these prisoners were being
cruelly treated by their German captors, there was much tension
in the Admiralty. It was urgently flashed that the Altmark, if
found, be prevented by any means from reaching German waters.

A Lancaster plane found her a day later, hugging Norway and
well inside Norwegian territorial waters.

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 147

Our Intelligence reported that the presence of the vessel was
known to the Norwegian government, as was the fact that she
carried British prisoners. We expected therefore that she would
be boarded and searched by the Norwegians. She was boarded,
but no proper search was made ol her hold and she was per-
mitted to proceed. We lost her for a few hours, then picked her
up again farther down the Norwegian coast close to the head-
land of losing Fjord. Because the Alfmark had no right to the
protection of these waters, Winston ordered H.M.S. Cossack to
enter the fjord. Captain Vian of the Cassock notified the Nor-
wegian naval commander that if he received no cooperation from
the Norwegian government or navy, he would go after the Altmark
alone. He invited the commander to assist in a second search for
the British prisoners. And he was refused. He proceeded alone
therefore.

When the skipper of the Altmark saw that the British destroyer
was going to engage him, he turned sharply and tried to ram the
Cossack. The ships indeed did strike, the Altmark being boarded
hi the old-fashioned method, with sidearms very much in use and
a great deal of hand-to-hand fighting. The British are severe and
methodical in such situations. They stabbed, shot, whacked and
bayoneted their way to the hold.

The British prisoners, as reported, were there, The report was
accurate both as to the number of men and the probable condi-
tion in which they would be found. They'd been in a stinking hold
for over three months. But there was an impromptu celebration
the instant they came up the ladders and companionways, and the
cry "THE NAVY is HERE!" brought them aboard the Cossack. Two
hundred and ninety-nine of them.

How Germany screamed and howled! Hitler was going to burn
Churchill, burn his capital. There was no awfohiess big enough or
cruel enough to be visited on the Old Man. Hitler's voice was
hysterical. And Ms terror of Churchill* not England but the man
Churchill, was insensate and often quite incoherent Churchill often
tuned him in and grunted in expanding satisfaction, loosening his
garments, unconsciously chewing away on a long-dead cigar.
Hitler afforded huge emotional gratification to Churchill by being
such a comical, spluttering, screaming ape and like any other

148 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

primate showing off to a big crowd, most accommodating in the
frequency of his appearances.

Goebbels of course called Captain Vian's action "an unexam-
pled act of piracy." "This boarding of a peaceful German mer-
chantman." No German heard, of course, that there were almost
three hundred British prisoners on board. And the Altmark's cap-
tain, Heinrich Dau, was as big a liar as any other German includ-
ing Goebbels, for he swore on landing that the British boarding
parties opened fire on Ms unarmed and defenseless German crew.
The Altmark was registered as a warship.

The end of 1939 and Christmas was little different for Mr.
Churchill. The Old Man, after the despairs and then the sudden
exhilarations, looked spent. Maybe he was. Surely I was. His
secretarial staff was worn out, including the charming little Miss
Shearburn, whom I from time to time managed to see briefly,
though never when the First Lord might know of it, for he hated
attachments of any sort that might dilute the quality and amount
of work he wrung from his staff si So when Ms doctor gave him an
order to have a Christmas dinner with Ms own family, even if
the Germans were on their way to London from landings at the
Ckque Ports, we all felt relieved.

We did somewhat recover too, and well it was, for Churchill
was up and off to Weymouth, the only naval installation he had
not got round to. He spent three days there, seeing the whole
of it and being deeply shaken all over again at the losses our
sMpping was taking from German U-boats. We drove from there
to Caene Abbey where he remained for two days as the guest of
Lord and Lady Digby, the parents of Ms son Randolph's first wife.
This was truly Ms first day off in a long time. I think he enjoyed
this* I surely did. After finding out that no one was expected and
that he was well-sMelded, I myself went to sleep without that
dreadful feeling that the bliss of rest will soon be broken. I slept
for ten hours. I had not done so in some years. Was I getting a
bit older?

The next day could have been a very sad one for me. I made
a bad mistake. In the evening, when we left the beautiful country

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 149

place of Lord and Lady Digby, we went to the station by car. I
felt fit, frisky and completely refreshed, as if I could take charge
of anything. I was in charge of little more than Winston's two offi-
cial boxes. I kept these in my possession until we reached the
station, when Mr. Churchill moved to the other end of the plat-
form. The baggage, with the other boxes, was at the other end and
with these I placed my two official ones. As there were a number
of people on the platform most of them, but not all, known to
me my duty was to stand close to the First Lord and not leave
Ms immediate presence until we had boarded the train and were
in motion. I left the boxes where the remainder of the party would
have them under their eyes. When the train came in, the baggage
was put aboard and I accompanied Mr. Churchill to his com-
partment I asked one of the party if the boxes had been put
aboard and being assured this was so, I got into the train. Passing
Mr. Churchill's compartment I saw he had one official box at his
side. A special messenger had awaited us at the station with a box
he had brought from London, I went to him to obtain it. On find-
ing that the messenger had already given the box to Mr. Churchill,
the sudden thought shot through my mind: Where were the two
boxes of mine which I had laid down with the other baggage? I
asked the messenger, the valet, and then Mr. Churchill's secretary.
All were sure the boxes were aboard. However, I entered Ms
compartment and found to my horror that they were not there.
They were missing! There is no more awful feeling than this.

Something had to be done at once, even to backing the train
to the platform we'd just left. I informed the First Lord, telling
him flatly of the mistake and that I was going to have the train
stopped and reversed. I saw the railway inspector at once and told
him what had happened and that he had to stop. He said it was
quite impossible as we had just crossed the points and were on
the main line, with traffic feeding in upon us and between us and
the station we had left. We could not halt here.

I did arrange for a stop at the next station. I expected to take
a terrible reprimand from Churchill for I knew how important the
contents of the first box were, having been in attendance when it
was discussed.

Before the train stopped, I had jumped off and was at the tele-

150 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

phone In the stationmaster's office. It was an unscheduled stop
and I got volcanic service the instant our predicament was known
to local authority.

The stationmaster at our departure point had realized, thank
God, the possible value of anything left behind by the First Lord
of the Admiralty and partly due to the local importance to the
community of Lord and Lady Digby, special protection was given
the boxes until they should be reclaimed.

I informed Churchill. He was coldly relieved. But I got a
severe reproof from him which I thoroughly deserved. However,
so great was my own relief that I would have taken it ten times
without protest. Miss Shearburn was present taking dictation.
Churchill scattered his criticism on the matter to include her as
well, pointing out the unthinkable dangers if the contents of either
box had got into the wrong hands. I of course immediately ab-
solved the young lady but she would not have it so, insisting on
assuming her portion of responsibility for the care of the general
baggage on such a trip. I think now that Mr. Churchill realized
we were trying to shield each other, since there was no logical
reason why she should implicate herself. In a humorous way he
told us to be more careful hi the future. I said it was definitely
and exclusively my error and would never be repeated.

It never was. But to this day I hate baggage of all kinds. In
my particular job, there was an extra risk to Mr. Churchill due
to my being so handicapped in my physical movement and men-
tally preoccupied with tending gear and boxes. I would change
these responsibilities; it would improve security.

We were soon in rough water going across the Channel again,
bound for another of the uncountable conferences which Winston
held with what seemed half the population of Europe. It was in
January. Mr. Churchill's personal private secretary, Miss Mary
T. G. Shearburn, told me she was going to Paris with us this time
and said she would be aboard the same destroyer that was taking
the First Lord, I told her this was a pleasant and romantic idea
that would surely please the crew but that such a thing had never
happened in the history of the British Navy. At least during war-
time.

I was of course no end pleased to find her aboard, and there-

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 151

after not at all surprised at the stir she caused. It's a wonder we
made land. Miss Shearburn, it being known instantly somehow
that she was "Miss," was escorted to one place after another, from
bridge to gun turrets to the torpedo room to the wardroom and
back. Her name had been included in the list of the party to the
destroyer (H.M.S. Codrington) and one of the officers recog-
nized the name and greeted Miss Shearbum with the news that
he was a friend of her brother, a naval commander. She was not
only given every possible attention, she was given more than she
needed, every man outdoing the other in forcing hospitality upon
her. She loved it too. A whole walking flotilla escorted her to the
gangway on arrival at the French coast.

While still some miles away and no land in sight, we saw a
number of mines floating in the water. Winston became very
excited by this spectacle and was immediately into the fun, taking
off his coat and cranking the gun down for sightings and firings.
He familiarized himself with the firing mechanisms in a few min-
utes (though I'm sure the crew found errors there) and he began
to fire at them. Six were blown up in this short run, making
hollow and fearful sounds that shook the chest and that sent
plumes of water hundreds of feet up. These mines, because they
were floating, were of a different type from those that attacked
by stealth: the magnetic variety that we were only just now learn-
ing to deal with.

Miss Shearburn made her graceful departure from the destroyer
and within minutes the party was on its way to Metz. Here I en-
countered one of the disappointments that is the lot of Scotland
Yard. While Churchill took off for a comprehensive tour of the
Maginot Line, something that had thrilled my own imagination
since construction of this "impassable barrier/* I was ordered to
stay in my hotel room. I had to guard a secret model of some-
thing or other "with my life." Churchill saw my disappointment
and promised me a look at everything "the next time/' In war
there is seldom a next time. I never saw the Maginot Line. A few
days later, at Vincennes, after a special dinner where Churchill
spoke, the Old Man called me into his room and at considerable
length lectured me concerning the important duty I had carried
out in guarding the secret model, saying that I had performed a

152 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

much more important duty than in guarding him. I demurred.
Around him it does no good to demur.

Early the next morning we were off again, to Rheims, RAF
headquarters. An entire champagne cellar was put at the dis-
posal of the party. The French General GameHn decorated Gen-
eral Ironside and Lord Gort, Churchill made a speech to the
615th Squadron of the RAF of which he is Honorary Commodore,
and we were back in England once more. Miss Shearbum seemed
aware of me, but in the same way as she might be aware of the
greengrocer.

The German U-boat campaign was going forward on an inten-
sive scale. Enemy and neutral ships alike were going down daily.
This called for Churchill's appeal to neutrals which he made in
a broadcast on January 20th. In the course of the speech, Mr.
Churchill said there was a five-hundred-to-one chance of a ship
going down in convoy and made a direct appeal to neutral nations
to join convoys. Some of the more notable sentences and ideas
in his speech were these: "But what would happen if all these
neutral nations I have mentioned and some others I have not
mentioned were with one spontaneous impulse to do their duty
in accordance with the Covenant of the League, and were to stand
together with British and French Empires against oppression and
wrong? At present their plight is lamentable; and it will become
much worse. There is no chance of a speedy end except through
united action." He had this message of hope at the close: "Let
the great cities of Warsaw, of Prague, of Vienna banish despair
even in the midst of their agony. Their liberation is sure. The day
will come when the joybells will ring again throughout Europe,
and when victorious nations, masters not only of their foes but of
themselves, will plan and build in justice, in tradition, and in
freedom, a house of many mansions where there will be room for
all."

His warning that neutral nations would be overrun was sadly
borne out almost at once. The speech caused much uneasiness in
Holland, where his suggestion was considered "unreasonable" by
the press.

One cold morning we drove to Manchester, a factory city,
where he made a public speech in the Free Trade Hall in the

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 153

heart of the city. This was the speech in which he appealed for a
million women workers. As usual he was way ahead of everyone
else in seeing what would be needed and in finding sources that
might be used to fill the need. (Over half of England's total fe-
male population was finally working in some war job before V-E
Day.) It was a long speech and much of it was quoted in news-
papers all over the world. You will remember snatches of it:
"Come then; let us to the task, to the battle, to the toil each to
our part, each to our station. Fill the armies, rule the air, pour out
the munitions, strangle the U-boats, sweep the mines, plough the
land, build the ships, guard the streets, succor the wounded, up-
lift the downcast and honor the brave. Let us go forward together
in all parts of the Island. There is not a week, not a day, not an
hour to lose. Every minute we let down, the enemy picks up."

Things worsened. There was another quick journey to Paris,
Winston's fifth meeting with the Supreme War Council. Because
his own responsibility was so limited and his own ability so great,
the difference between what he could do and what he was allowed
to do was truly enormous. I could see, in the faces of the French,
this projected but unspoken disappointment. The waste of
Winston in the face of our present reverses was known to them
all to be crucially unwise. Today the whole world knows it was
evidence of myopic, timid thinking. Much of the fault lies with
Chamberlain. He was nominally the central member of the party,
but even as Prime Minister he was never the actual center of it
or of anything if Churchill was about. Lord Halifax was along too,
a bony aloof man, formerly Viceroy to India. I did not know what
tragedy he was bearing at this time for he had kept the death of
his son from us all. (I did not of course know that the death of
one of my own sons was imminent.)

French crowds in Paris were overjoyed to see the English party
and shouts of "Shatn-bur-lain" rang out to us from the sidewalks
and the crowded cafes and from windows up and down the steep
houses. I got no sleep on this tour and merely stretched out on a
cot, fully dressed, before the door of whatever room Mr. Qrarchill
occupied on any night,

M. Daladier, at the meeting's eventual conclusion, said it was
the most productive and satisfactory War Council meeting he'd

154 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

ever attended. The whole group of delegates was asked to form
Itself outside the main building where photographs were taken.
As usual I was not in the picture, being to Winston's right and
between him and the only exposed corridor. On our return Mr.
Churchill asked me if I had had my photograph taken with the
group. I said that I had not. He said it was unfortunate.

"I am certain that the people in that group will never again
meet in similar circumstances, and the same group will never meet
intact under any circumstances." It was another of his quick but
disturbingly accurate forecasts. Daladier soon after was no longer
France's number one man, and poor Chamberlain, as you all
know, was shortly out of office and then died.

Back in England there was increased public agitation over the
way the Germans were treating crews of torpedoed ships. Many
sailors had been abandoned and many more fired upon while
swimming or straggling in the water. They had been fired on
while trying to get away in ships' boats, they had even been fired
on when loaded lifeboats were being slung to the ocean's surface.
The Admiralty was full of eyewitness stories and of the most
shocking and heartbreaking photographs I had up to that time
ever looked at. Yet the German concentration camps were worse
because the brutalities there were so prolonged and so conscien-
tiously planned. The shame of these is a shame that will outlast
the end of the Germans, no matter when that end may come and
irrespective of the manner of its coming.

Terrible pressures were being brought upon Winston to treat
German crews in like manner. He would not do so. He said it was
contrary to the dictates of the Royal Navy in treatment of captive
nationals and sailors. But here insult was added to injury. The
German radio, in its unceasing attack on Winston Churchill, his
Navy and his people, gave out the news that all British merchant-
men would be treated as ships of war because they were all
armed or about to be armed. This was a typical hypocrisy, the
Germans as usual whining over something they could not control
or insult into extinction. They were crying because by arming our
vessels we were able to hit back; many U-boats were sent to the
bottom by the deck guns of British merchant ships carrying war

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 155

materials. This was another of Churchill's ideas that went right at
the heart of the matter and worked from the beginning.

Late in February, Churchill had several concentrated confer-
ences on board the Warspite at Greenock. They were convened in
a great hurry. In fact, I was summoned from my bed in my own
little home at two o'clock one morning when I had just lain down
after being on my feet continuously for over thirty hours,

"Get to Huston for a trip north on a special tram." That's all I
was told. I am always packed, I went into the target gallery in
my own basement, fired a hundred rounds, freshened my ammuni-
tion, then drove through black icy rain on my motorcycle to Ens-
ton. After joining Mr. Churchill again this time, we seemed to be
in continuous motion. After Greenock, we drove in a fleet of cars
to Glasgow, where the First Lord was for a day in the company
of Their Majesties and where the launching of the Duke of York
took place.

This might have been any other launching except that, unknown
to me at this time, on her maiden trip this was the vessel which
was to carry Winston Churchill for his first conference with Pres-
ident Roosevelt in December, 1941.

Whilst on the Clyde, Mr. Churchill and the small party with Mm
had a grandstand view of another mighty vessel the new liner
Queen Elizabeth. At that very instant she was sliding down the
river on what proved to be a secret voyage to the United States-
This was a beautifully kept secret and was not revealed until her
physical arrival at the other side.

We returned to London. Papers were put aboard the plane and
Winston set about reading all of them at once. He was soon en-
gulfed in a snowdrift of them, and once had to reach up to receive
a glass of beer the steward wished to pass down to Mm.

The papers contained translations of what was being said about
the British and the war by the Italian press. It was a long sequence
of anti-British outbursts. Italy was most obviously preparing for
war.

We again returned to Greenock where Churchill boarded
the Rodney. Accompanied by the Renown, Repulse (we lost the
Repulse off Singapore later) and a group of destroyers, we sailed
again for Scapa. Winston had secured it, but on our approach to

156 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

its mouth, word was lashed to us that the Germans had within
the hour dropped a great number of mines at the entrance. The
Captain of the Rodney considered it unnecessary to enter the main
harbor before mine-sweepers had cleared the channel and it was
decided that the First Lord, who had immediate business at Scapa,
should be lowered over the side and rowed to a destroyer. This
was done. I went too.

There was much activity among the destroyers. They kept cir-
cling the big ships. There was a good possibility there were U-boats
in the region, and there were some beautiful prizes waiting there
if that were true. There is nothing so irresistible to a hostile sub-
marine as a stationary battleship. We rowed through a hundred
yards of rough water, then scrambled up a ladder to the jolting
deck of another destroyer. Even this ship, which was in a sense
pressed into service to ferry the First Lord to the base, kept mak-
ing continuous sharp circles and quick turns, doubling back with-
out warning and cutting right through her own wake. She kicked
up a mighty fuss.

Soon we were alongside the Hood. My impressions of her were
always the same: the most concentrated unit of destruction ever
afloat. What irony! We were soon to lose her in the North Atlantic,
in what I am sure is the most amazing single shot in the history of
ocean fighting, a shell fired from eighteen miles away not only
striking her but penetrating and detonating her magazine!

His conference aboard the Hood at an end, we reboarded the
Rodney and again went through the Minches and down the coast
to Plymouth. On our way I was most perturbed to read in ship's
news broadcast that another assassination had occurred. It was Sir
Michael O'Dwyer. He'd been shot through the heart while at-
tending a public meeting at the Caxton Hall murdered by a Sikh
named Singh Azad. In the same attack Lord Zetland, Secretary of
State for India, had been wounded. I have noticed that when there
is one attack on a public official, there is often an attempt on an-
other one. Accordingly I was relieved when after arriving in Lon-
don, we were soon off by plane for Paris again.

Hitler and Mussolini were meeting in what the press of both
their countries called a "peace drive/' The French Cabinet was
nervous. Members of our party, as well as the French, kept offer-

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 157

ing each other suggestions for a pact between France and Great
Britain not to sign separate peace articles. Things were that bad.
In fact, while we were there M. Daladler resigned, Reynaud took
over, and the German press blared its front page rages, calling
Reynaud a pro-British 'Trench Churchill." Winston was pleased
to hear this.

The British public was kept openly informed of our ocean losses,
but neither they nor our enemies were informed about new launch-
ings. These of course were going on aE the time. It was a pity we
could not tell our own people. Inside, aU the British were bleeding.
Near the close of March I accompanied Mr. and Mrs. Churchill
to Furness Abbey. This is the home of Sir Charles Craven, chair-
man of Vickers. Sir Charles is not known to Americans, being one
of those quiet, "behind-the-scenes" Englishmen. His name ap-
peared infrequently even in the British press. Our purpose here
was to attend the launching of the aircraft carrier Illustrious. It
would have picked up the morale of every man and woman in Eng-
land if they could have been along.

Coining back to London, Mr. Churchill handed a news bulletin
to his wife. Ley, the leader of the Nazi Labor Front, broadcasting
from Rotterdam, was advertising the fact that he was planning
cruises for German workers to spend their holidays at the most
popular seaside resorts on the south coast of England! It was to
take place during the late months of the oncoming summer.

Mrs. Churchill turned to her husband: "Do you think the Nazis
can get aboard the Island?"

"No," he said at once. "But they'll make a mighty try. At least
I would if I were Hitler." He then opened Ms coat and Ms own
revolver was briefly in view. "If they do try," he told her, "111 get
a few before they take me." He grinned and growled and looked
across toe water.

Winston spoke over the air. Before leaving Ms office, I asked
him if he had remembered to bring Ms reading glasses. I had re-
minded Mm many times before and was forever doing it, especially
when we got to the United States, where Ms memory for this one
detail abandoned Mm entirely. He thanked me, went back, picked
them up, and we arrived a few moments before Ms scheduled
broadcast It was tbe 30tii of March.

158 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

More and more the public was looking forward to the words of
Winston, for though they always told in harshest truth where we
stood, they also lifted our whole population. Tonight, as he had
many times before, he had to tell England of still more hardships
which lay ahead of her. To those who were constantly asking,
"What are we fighting for?" he had this curt reply: "If we left off
fighting you would soon find out," To those who doubted the
rightness of our self-imposed task, he said: "Few there are tonight
who, looking back on these last seven months, would doubt that
the British and French peoples were right to draw the sword of
justice and retribution. Fewer still there are who would wish to
sheath it till its somber, righteous work is done." He pointed out
that the British had no quarrel with the Italian or the Japanese
peoples; that we could still at least try to live on good terms with
them. Then he made another true forecast He said that over a
million German soldiers in many armored divisions were at the
frontiers of Luxembourg, Belgium, and Holland, about to invade
those neutral and almost defenseless nations.

His prediction of invasion was repeated a day later by Prime
Minister Chamberlain. It served more to increase the public de-
mand for a Defense Minister than to anneal the public's confidence
in Chamberlain. Winston's appointment came (he was named
Defense Minister in the Cabinet) a few weeks later. It was
received Joyfully throughout England. But Hitler nearly had
apoplexy. "Bloodthirsty amateur strategist" came roaring over the
German radio, as soon as the appointment was confirmed. "Drunk-
ard," "gabbler," "hypocrite," and the one that amused Mr.
Churchill the most: "Lazybones."

Winston and I flew across-Channel to France where the now
multi-portfolioed Minister met with Lord Gort at British Head-
quarters. In England Chamberlain, addressing the Central Council
of the Conservative and Unionist Association, said he was ten
times as confident of victory as he was when war began, and added
the sentence that has since been ridiculed a million times: "Hitler
missed the bus."

Political comment is not my field but no man in England irre-
spective of Ms insight, degree of education, courage or basic intel-
ligence could by that time have any other notion about Cham-

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 159

beriain than that lie had very little conception of war itself. And
I do not today have any doubt that had Chamberlain continued
in power for another six months we would have been defeated. I
never heard Winston mention any of this, and you will of course
recall that upon Ms own accession to power 3 Winston retained
Chamberlain in his own Cabinet. But I think he did it to keep the
old gentleman, who was very il by then, from dying a few weeks
prematurely from a broken heart. Winston never said anything
unkind about Chamberlain though I know there were many times
when it was nothing but nobility of self-control that kept Churchill
from exploding and foaming at his colleague's exacerbating lack
of realism. Chamberlain went to Ms grave still believing that peo-
ple even the Germans would stop behaving like apes; that they
would because they should. Churchill knew better. It must have
been a persistent, even infantile 9 naivete that kept Chamberlain
optimistic when there was nothing on hand but the most dreadful
amount of bad news.

In Paris, Winston being most fearful the French would make
a separate peace., a declaration was prepared by him and M. Rey-
naud. "The government of the French Republic and His Majesty's
Government of Great Britain and Northern Ireland mutually un-
dertake that during the present war they will neither negotiate nor
conclude an armistice or treaty of peace except by mutual agree-
ment. They undertake not to discuss peace terms before reaching
complete agreement on the conditions necessary to ensure to each
of them an effective and lasting guarantee of their security. Finally
they undertake to maintain after the conclusion of peace, a com-
munity of action in all spheres for so long as may be necessary
to safeguard their security, and to effect the reconstruction, with
the assistance of other nations, of an international order which will
ensure the liberty of people, respect for law, and the maintenance
of peace in Europe."

This soon became Just another scrap of paper.

Upon Ms return to England a few hours after publication of the
above, he was asked to describe England's position in regard to
Russia. He said at once that what had necessarily been a condition
of estrangement between us, owing to the signing of the treaty
between Germany and Russia, was now looking more hopeful

160 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

since, to their credit, the Russian government was offering to re-
sume trade talks with us. The offer had just been made by Mr.
Maisky, Soviet Ambassador to London, a most conspicuous Rus-
sian in that he was the first representative ever sent to us by the
Kremlin in many years. All the others were bully boys and stooges,
unconscionably rude and unimaginably dull, but Maisky was
funny, bright and alive and made many English friends.

The mutual declaration, plus a possible improvement in Rus-
sian relations, made Mr. Churchill a target of the press. Photog-
raphers haunted us. This made it most difficult for me. All the
press, and the photographers included, are quite a fine group of
men, just doing their jobs as they see fit. But it was hell on me. I
had to discourage them as much as 1 could. I had to be sure that
nothing was going to be allowed in the published picture that would
reveal the actual geographical location of the First Lord. I had to
stay out of the pictures, not always easy when they were taking
shots with silent shutters, shooting from odd angles, or sneaking
the pictures. At the same time I had to honor the rightful desires
of the nation's press, and of future readers of history who were en-
titled to see what England's leaders had looked like.

What it meant was this: If you honored the one, you put the
other in jeopardy.

Rarely did photographers appear at the back garden gate of
Number Ten Downing Street. Security measures had considerably
cramped their style, but here they were again. Mr. Churchill and
I had just walked from the Admiralty to the garden gate. One very
persistent, smiling photographer seemed determined to snap the
First Lord. I tried to prevent him from taking the picture at that
particular spot. Mr. Churchill went up to the man and in the
friendliest tone said to him: "Do you want to take a photograph?"

The man, with evident delight, answered at once: "Oh, yes,
please, sir."

"They are forbidden, here, sir," I cautioned him, knowing lie
full knew it himself.

"So they are, Thompson." And he stood there smiling at the
lens and at the photographer. "But how are they to return to their
editors with pictures unless they take them?"

"True, but not here, sir."

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 161

The photographer continued snapping, Winston continued to
agree with me and to accommodate the cameraman at the same
time, and nothing could be done about it. On the way in to Num-
ber Ten he turned to me softly, knowing I was vexed and that
he'd broken the rules, and said they had their own real values and
one had to use one's discretion in these matters. "They have to
come in with copy, Thompson, or they don't get paid/'

That night, in several of London's papers, I was exasperated to
find many smiling poses of the First Lord in the garden of Num-
ber Ten, with myself making gestures of reproof an angry scowl
on my face in the immediate background. The caption saved me
a light reprimand at headquarters: OVER THE PROTEST OF SCOT-
LAND YARD, OUR FIRST LORD RETURNS FROM FRANCE AND SMILES
AT PRESS CAMERA.

That Churchill could always smile, and do so without forcing
it, must have helped save England by encouraging others to hang
on when there seemed so little reason. We were all in a terrible
situation. Our Prime Minister was weak and ill. We were being
mauled in France. No one could stand up against the Germans.
Russia had breached the Mannerheim Line. German armed forces
moved north, and things could not get much worse without snap-
ping. Most Englishmen expected the invasion attempt within a
month.

Norway had been very much in the minds of the government.
Enemy vessels were violating Norwegian neutral waters and passing
inside her territorial limits, thence either returning to Germany or
passing from that country and escaping into the Atlantic, Churchill
of course knew it. By this simple means a number of ships had
eluded the vigilance of the British fleet. I knew ChurchiH liad
wished for many weeks to take the strong step of mining the va-
rious parts of Norway's coast.

Eventually he had Ms way, though not before appreciable ship-
ping had been successfully sunk. But on April 8th we began min-
ing the Norwegian coast. What tragedy this might have saved, had
it been done before, for as we now know, Germany had been
sending ships to many Norwegian ports with German troops on
board. These troops remained ready but under cover until the
actual invasion of Norway was imminent

162 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

This gallant little country was now doomed. The day following
the mining of the coast, the German occupation of Denmark was-
commenced, as weM as the military invasion of Norway herself.
Denmark was in no position to resist in any way. She had to
submit to the iron heel of Hitler's hordes with no way to hit back.
Norway could have put up stubborn resistance but Hitler's agents
had done their job, and Quisling had many supporters who sprang
up on all sides and betrayed their countrymen everywhere.

The day after the invasion of Norway began, the battle of Narvik
took place. It was largely a battle of German and British de-
stroyers. It was a big sea victory for us, for Narvik was an im-
portant port at which we later landed and embarked troops. We
now had positive information that German troops were already
aboard many scores of ships and had been for some time ships
anchored at Trondhjem, Narvik, Oslo, Bergen and Stavanger. The
Germans of course denied this and stated that their invasion of
Norway was "protective of her sovereignty' 5 because we had mined
her seacoast.

In contrast to the invasion of Norway was the landing of a
British force in Iceland. It lifted Allied spirits everywhere. It was
enthusiastically received in the United States; very shortly after
our own landing there, America proved her blessing of the action
by supplementing the British force with a force of her own. Ice-
landers didn't like this at first and Hitler made constant reference
to it and to the combined aggression of two powers upon a "weak
people." But the landing and occupying troops behaved well and
this had a reassuring effect on the population of Iceland. Later
when I visited there I saw for myself that the strain of occupation
was not severe and indeed the local inhabitants and alien troops
had settled down amicably together.

Italy continued to sneer at us. All her news items were in-
creasingly anti-British, at this time in respect to the aid we had
given Norway- Italy at this time was also ignoring repeated ap-
proaches by France for a bond of friendship between the two
nations. The day when Mussolini would declare war was quickly
approaching. It would not be long in coining either when Benito
would strike at France when France was in full retreat, before the
crush of the German offense.

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 163

Affairs in Norway continued to go badly. TMs created rest-
lessness in the House of Commons. Many Members demanded a
debate. Others pressed for an all-party government. Mr. Cham-
berlain stated his willingness to cooperate with all parties, but the
mood of the House was one that would not be satisfied by such a
statement. Many Members rose and spoke openly against the gov-
ernment's action in Norway. They hated the botching of it. They
hated the military fiasco of it, the cost, the delay. Our War Budget
was colossal. It had jumped from eight hundred mffiloE pounds to
over two and a half billion pounds. No Member was wiling to
accept Chamberlain's explanation.

Churchill rose. He defended our operations in Norway. He
defended Chamberlain, A thrill went through me when he turned
savagely upon the full membership and challenged them all to see
if one Member could answer why, for five years, Churchill had not
been able to persuade them to keep our Air Force on a par with
Germany's. Churchill had long dwelt on this problem: that our
security could never be guaranteed if our Air Force was inferior
to our enemies*.

This stilled them. And he said quietly, after the long and preg-
nant silence which his direct challenge had created, that what the
Chamberlain government had done in Norway was the best pos-
sible under existing circumstances against a far more powerful
enemy. He kept the government together a few more days. But no
man could have kept it together longer unless by some miracle
the land area of Germany were to disappear completely. But this
would be too happy a phenomenon!

The debacle of Norway was dramatized further by the arrival
in London of Norway's King, Haakon VII. He and Ms Cabinet
escaped and continued a resistance movement of their own in
exile. Scotland Yard of course immediately supplied them all with
individual protection. For Europe, it looked like the roof was
about to collapse. It was too. The Germans crashed into Belgium,
Holland, and Lomnbowg. The Maginot Line? They walked
around its two ends. Chambedain resigned.

In the years I had served Winston and those of us who had

been around Mm for a long time began to ref er to him affectionately

164 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

as "The Old Man" (he was sixty-four) I had seen him in many
posts. I had often doubted, however, because of the dilatory state
of mind of the average professional politician in England, that he
would ever receive and occupy the office he had so long earned
and into which England, for her own salvation, now so critically
needed to see him installed. I guess I had not got over the treat-
ment he took from Stanley Baldwin. And yet, in this crucial time,
this was the moment when Winston was called upon to form a
new government.

Why Churchill should have fallen out of favor so often
and for such long periods no man will ever quite know. He
seemed an outcast in the eyes of Baldwin. Perhaps, the man was
merely too dazzling, infallible and prescient to be believable. This
could explain why he could be only half appreciated by those who
so deeply respected and loved him and why, for those who feared
him or envied his genius or his bearing of command, it was a
pleasure and even a relief to see him shelved from time to time.

It is not, however, flattering to British perspicacity. Our sporadic
use of his gifts instead of our constant and worshipful enjoy-
ment of them will always, in my view, be a shameful page in
history. Plain myopia. There never was a man on this earth like
him. Other great men will appear but never again will we see a
man so profoundly endowed with such telescopic foresight and
such massive organizing abilities. And these are of course quite
apart from the magnificence of the man when seen in his human
terms. And it is the human qualities that will enrich the legend of
the man. His military and political decisions have already taken
care of the man historically.

In the afternoon of the 10th of May, with the world exploding
and the oceans geysering, I drove behind the Old Man with inde-
scribable pride. His destination was Buckingham Palace. He was
to have an audience with His Majesty the King.

We came back to the Admiralty in silence, as we had gone. As
he stepped out of his car he said: "You know why I've been to
Buckingham Palace." And I of course said, "Yes, sir" and con-
gratulated him. There was pleasure in his face, but he was very
tense too.

"I am most pleased you have finally attained this position, sir/*

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 165

1 him and I meant It from the bottom of my heart "but I
most deeply wish that It had come your way in far better times,
for you have told them a thousand times that this very thing will
happen, and now it has 5 and you have taken on an enormous task/*

He shook my hand like a friend then, and before going on into
the Admiralty said to me: **God alone knows how great It is, ...
All I hope is that it is not too late. I am very much afraid that
it is. But we can only do our best, and give the rest of what we
have whatever there may be left to us "

For an instant then he stood entirely still, looking at me, then
on through me and into the distance, oblivious to the traffic and
the sound of planes in the air. Tears came into his eyes and fell.
Still he did not move. I could say nothing. Tears were now threat-
ening my own, so I looked off and about, made the instinctive ges-
ture toward my guns an invisible reflex by now. We both turned
toward the Admiralty now. He moved with ponderous purpose to
the stairway, muttering low, after which his jaw set, the muscles
about Ms mouth became hard, and he started up the long flight
and the quiet ascent to final greatness and his own part in the
final saving of the freedoms of civilized maa. At a proper dis-
tance, I followed.

Everywhere, from al the corridor doorways, the whole of Eng-
land seemed to rash out to him and seize him. His appointment
all over Great Britain was greeted with the same thankfulness that
was taking place right here before us now. England rose up in a
sudden force and vigor, shook herself and picked herself up. It
was as if, to the average workingman in England, a new power
had arisen in our midst And undoubtedly it had. His name was on
everyone's Mps. The man that Britain needed had arrived. Allies
and friendly neutrals alike acclaimed Ms appointment, just as the
Axis powers had dreaded it No wonder they desired his assassina-
tion in 1939.

Mr. Churchill made Ms first speech to the House of Commons
as Prime Minister three days after he took office. He outlined the
formation of Ms government You remember the great conclud-
ing words: 6 *I would say to this House, as I have said to those who
have joined the government* I have nothing to offer but blood,
toil, tears and sweat We have before us an ordeal of the most

166 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

grievous Mud. We have before us many very long months of
straggle and suffering. . . . Come then, let us go forward together
with our united strength."

The vote of confidence which followed was unanimous. It gave
the new Prime Minister a stimulus that carried him clear through
to the finish.

Inactivity had now become activity. Our forces were gradually
getting into positions which would bring them face to face with
German troops, something not new to the English. We had a well-
equipped army. It had waited many months for the collision. Now
it was here. What did the future hold? Would Holland resist?
Would the Belgians fight? We learned very quickly that both were
offering resistance. The British army moved into Belgium. On
every side we received tributes that brought back memories of
World War I.

The Germans had concentrated enormous armored units at the
pivot cm the River Meuse. This was the spot where the British
and French forces linked up. The Germans smashed in. Within a
very few days they had made frightening headway. On May 15th
they crossed the Meuse in great force and appeared behind the
French lines. German tanks rolled ahead almost without hind-
rance.

What had happened? Who was responsible? The question came
from all sides. It is still unanswered. You may recall that at the
Riom Trials efforts were made to lay the blame on various French
ex-Cabinet Ministers and on some of the fighting chiefs themselves.
There had been, in any case, a terrible blunder. The bridges over
the Meuse had not been blown up. This unbelievable error had
allowed German armor of the greatest weight and striking force
to pass unimpeded into France. The point of catastrophe was
actually held and engaged by French troops, but pilots of the RAF
were called upon to bomb the bridges. Four flights were detailed
for this. The bridges were destroyed. But not a single British
flier returned from this raid.

Much reliance was still being placed on the Maginot Line. IB
the view of the French who had built it, it was thought impreg-
nable. This was the British view as well. Churchill had been Im-
mensely impressed by his inspection of it not too long before. The

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 167

Germans also decided it was impregnable and made no effort to
breach it. They just went around it, as we know.

Further, we had been led to think that the French were well
supported by aircraft. And they had some armored divisions of
their own, not as tough or disciplined as the Panzers but depend-
able units and land fleets nonetheless. But French planes and
French tanks seemed to be missing when their time came.

With the Battle of France going against us all, Mr. Churchill
on May 16th decided to make an appeal to Mussolini in the hope
that he would keep Italy neutral. Churchill sat at his desk and
wrote in longhand. The following message was dispatched to
Rome:

"Now that I have taken up my office as Prime Minister and
Minister of Defense, I look back to our meetings in Rome and
feel a desire to speak words of goodwill to you as chief of the
Italian nation, across what seems to be a swiftly widening gulf.

"It is idle to predict the course of the great battles now raging
in. Europe but I am sure that whatever may happen on the Con-
tinent, England will go on to the end, even quite alone, as we have
done before, and I believe with some assurance that we shall be
aided in increasing measure by the United States and indeed by
all the Americas.

"I teg you to believe that it is in no spirit of weakness or of
fear that I make this solemn appeal, which will remain on record.
Down the ages above all other calls comes the cry that the joint
heirs of Latin and Christian civilization must not be ranged against
one another in mortal strife. Hearken to it, I beseech you, in all
honor and respect before the dread signal is given. It wiH never
be given by us."

Two days later, Churchill got this from Mussolini:

"I reply to the message which you have sent me in order to tell
you that you are certainly aware of grave reasons of an historical
and contingent character which have ranged our two countries in
opposite camps. Without going back very far in time, I remind you
of the initiative taken in 1935 by your government to organize
at Geneva sanctions against Italy, engaged in securing for herself
a small place in the African sun without causing the slightest in-
jury to your interests and territories, or those of others. I remind

168 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

you also of the real and actual state of servitude in which Italy
finds herself in her own sea. If it was to honor your signature that
your government declared war on Germany, you will understand
that the same sense of honor and of respect for engagements as-
sumed in the Italian-German Treaty guides Italian policy today
and tomorrow in the face of any event whatsoever."

Before Parliament, Mr. Churchill referred to his letter and the
reply to it. He mentioned the hard choice open to the Italian peo-
ple. He correctly foreshadowed Greek opposition. He predicted the
eventual gangs of ravening soldiery that Germany, with Gestapo
ancillaries, would send to Italy to help Mussolini "protect" the
Italian people.

In an exterminating air attack upon the heart of Rotterdam, the
Germans broke and fired this city. Rotterdam surrendered. Queen
WiMielmina escaped to London, her Cabinet following by a few
hours. Four days after Rotterdam was hit, the Dutch army ceased
firing. This was a paralyzing blow to us and to the Belgians. Ger-
man mechanized divisions smashed into northern France, roaring
down the valley of the Somme clear to the Channel at Abbeville.
This split the British and Belgian forces in Flanders and separated
them from the main French armies. Overnight Gamelin succeeded
Weygand but could not strengthen these tottering columns. Brus-
sels fell, then Namur, and the Belgians and British were thereby
forced back upon Ostend and Dunkirk. On the 26th, Boulogne
fell. The Belgian forces fighting without rest for eighteen days
could take no more. They were exhausted and unsupplied. Their
King, Leopold III, ordered them to capitulate. This left the British
exposed altogether. A quarter of a million of them withdrew, prin-
cipally to Dunkirk's beaches. There was nowhere else to go. On
these beaches we lost all equipment and thirty thousand men
killed or captured. By a spontaneous rising up of the British peo-
ple In the coastal towns, all manner of seagoing craft, much of it
leaky and of insignificant size, put out to pick up the living who
were stranded there.

It was after Dunkirk, and after the Germans were beating back
the French in an arc that curved from Sedan to Abbeville, that
Mussolini declared war on the French and on us.

Three days later, Paris was evacuated. Two days after this*

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 169

Verdun fell. With savage Irony, the same day that Verdun was
captured marked the day that the Russians moved Into Lithuania,
Latvia and Estonia, Petaln followed Paul Reynaud as head of the
French government. His first day as Premier he asked the Ger-
mans for an armistice. And five days after asMag for It, he got it.

This deluge of calamities all fell upon the head of Churchill
before he had been in office five full weeks. By this time most of
the population in England was planning what to do when Germans
began appearing in our OWE roads and byways.

Winston told them. It thrffled the world; "We shall defend our
Island whatever the cost may be.
We shall fight on the beaches.
We shall fight on the landing grounds.
We shall fight In the fields and In the streets.
We shall fight In the hills; we shall never surrender."

There is one thing I must say for the race that bore me: although
we often do amazingly unreasonable things and are quite stupid
about responding to a sense of timing, we never tremble. Right
now, it was all we had left, a very negative endowment. We ex-
pected invasion any night.

Anthony Eden was Secretary of State for War. He made an
announcement that Immediately created great interest In our
country. This interest, and the activity which Mr, Eden's announce-
ment started, stayed with us all right through to the end of the
war. He announced the formation of the Local Defense Volun-
teers. This was a very real thing, although I suppose it Is hard
for an American to understand just what it meant to the British
people. The Volunteers contained a high percentage of ex-soldiers
and campaigners. All of the men in this new corps were battle-
experienced. Most of them had fought in World War I. Their ex-
perience and their resolution gave great confidence to the masses
of our people. These were the men who would deal with such in-
vading Germans as reached our shores; such as penetrated our
towns and villages; as attacked our women.

The zeal to Mil Germans had also begun to infect England's
women, and I've seen many a British grandmother flat on her tummy,
shooting live ammunition at practice targets set up against a barn-
side or a stomp. The Volunteers were heavily organized and units

170 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

began to spread out over England with great speed. Three weeks
after Mr. Eden created this substantial defense of our accessible
island, it had six hundred and forty thousand members. They were
all armed and most of them were over fifty. Many were seventy.
All were in fine condition and were required to maintain a stand-
ard of physical toughness hardly less exacting than that of combat
troops. It gave us a new sense of safety. It was surely welcome,
for we were getting no comfort at all from what was taking place
on the continent.

Lend-Lease from America was a great lift, but more so to
those conducting the war than to those fighting it as individual
soldiers, or to those who were carrying on at home. To most
Englishmen, Lend-Lease was a great but intangible thing whose
benefits were appreciated in a statistical sense. It was somewhat as
if we had been told that Uncle Sam's shoulder was there and that
it was a strong shoulder, but that it had not yet been put to the
wheel, for only the members of the War Cabinet, and those in
Supply, Transport, and Ordnance were in a position to count the
blessings America was letting us have. We knew that it was big.
But we didn't know just what it was. Another extension, as it were,
of the average Englishman's idea of America and Americans: vast,
generous, muscular, but indistinct (It was soon to become most
distinct indeed not only to us but to the world!)

One day in mid- June, with everything black around us, Winston
Churchill had a dirty problem to deal with. The Germans, seeing
that the U.S, was showing increasing signs of becoming an im-
portant factor in the war, wanted to slow down America's contri-
bution as much as they could. They schemed therefore to cause
anti-British feeling in the United States. You will recall that the
Germans, at the time of the sinking of the Athema, accused Mr.
Churchill of causing this loss. Now they were to repeat this strata-
gem. The German press proclaimed to the world that German
Intelligence had received reliable information to the effect that
the American liner President Roosevelt, then at Galway, would be
sunk on her next voyage across the Atlantic, that she was to be
sunk at the instigation of Winston Churchill, and that Churchill
would then accuse the Germans of sinking it by U-boat. It was
known at the Admiralty and of course at Scotland Yard that a

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL , 171

number of extremely prominent Americans were aboard the vessel,
and the sinking of Hie vessel, had It occurred, would have caused
a terrific outcry in America. We all knew this. It was ABC psycho-
logical warfare.

Churchill dealt with this head-on. The vessel made the run all
right, the American people and the American press saw through
Hitler's scheme immediately, and the whole matter was treated
with the contempt it had earned. But It was another vexation that
had come on the top of so many others of such extreme nature that
it looked, quite suddenly, as if it might break the Old Man. He
looked very tired and I told him so.

I reminded him that now that he was Prime Minister he had
the right to the use of Chequers, not only on occasion but just as
regularly as he wanted to go down to it. I said this half jokingly,
and he took it this way too, but I think when I reminded him that
I had been an occupant of it long before he had (when I was guard-
ing Lloyd George) and that I felt lie could be made safe there s
get some sort of change, get as much done rader less distracting,
noisy and importunate conditions he began to pick up. You
could see it in Ms face. True, lie had been to Chequers once or
twice just to test it out a bit, to see if he might find some advan-
tages there. As the permanent residence of England's imperma-
nent Prime Ministers, Chequers offered advantages that he could
not find in his own Chartwel. And Chequers offered no problem
of expense or overhead Churchill's extra income something he
had been able to rely on during peacetime when he was almost
always at work on books and articles and which had paid him
enormous fees in the past had erf course evaporated. Chart-
well, though sustained by a skeleton staff, was expansive. I
thtnlc the idea of Chequers, its freehold intact and fc maintenance
gearanteed in perpetuity by its donor y was attractive to him in this
vary material sens. He may ham been as affected by that con-
sidoration as he was by the eqccafiy persuasive OIK for a man who
Iwed title and office and a good observance erf Parliamentary
punctilio that it was the aciwwfedged and accepted country
boose of fee King's First Mraister. Winston Mied everything that

172 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

had a kingly or a queenly ring to it. There was still some florid
medievalism in Mm, but far from silly, it seemed somehow right
la its very anachronism for it was as picturesque as it was uncon-
querable. He had an affinity for the flamboyant, provided it wore
the respect of centuries. This was such a real part of him that he
could have worn and carried into battle almost any relic that
hangs right now on any castle wall in England.

1 learned many interesting things about him, what rested him,
what relieved him, what he enjoyed. In a sense the weekends at
Chequers Court did relax him, perhaps just in time to escape a
breakdown, but it was hard to believe a relaxing process was in
force if one was in continuous contact with the man. He worked
all the time only harder. But there were interesting differences
and astonishing results.

Physically, both for himself and as far as my own duties of
security were concerned, for me too, it was like transferring Ten
Downing Street to the country. I found that when he was enjoying
brief intervals of leisure, his mind went right on anyhow, one side
of it being rested while the other continued to fashion and invent.

There were very positive signs of this. One of these was his
great love of films. It was his greatest pleasure to have private
showings of films in his house. His next greatest pleasure was
music. It had to have a hummable tune and it had to have a beat
to it. It had to have fixed rhythms. He liked marching music.

Chequers has a Great Hall, Churchill would turn on the radio
and find something to his liking, then begin marching up and down
the Great Hall in ecstatic disregard of the household and the
guests, shouting imaginary orders sometimes, making sharp parade-
ground turns when he came to the HalFs limits, then marching
back. He often did this in a brilliantly colored dressing gown. He
had several such dressing gowns. All were garish and expensive. At
this time Ms favorite songs included "Keep Right On to the End
of the Road," "Poor Old Joe," "Home Sweet Home,** and "Run
Rabbit Run." He would make unusual concessions in his foot-
work so as not to break rhythm with tunes like "Home Sweet
Home" which assuredly could never have been fashioned for
marching in the first place, and manage to march to it anyhow.

Being a police officer and supposedly well acquainted with most

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 173

of Winston's vagaries of mood, costume, and sudden enthusiasm,
I could never afford to show surprise of any kind. And to show
amusement would have been the crudest sort of disloyalty. There
were times though, especially when he started popping about
Chequers in a blue siren suit, looking so pneumatic as to suggest
he might at any moment rise from the floor and sail around over
his own acres, that I had to put brakes on my inner feelings, or
just refuse to look. And when he would suddenly realize he had
forgotten Ms teeth and send me running for them before he would
be seen without them, I was glad for the exit.

There were times, after the air raids had started in earnest,
when I have approached the Great Hail to find Mr. Churchill puff-
ing on a cigar, marching correctly but contemplatively in a zouave-
blue siren suit, looking like a big teddy bear after a big meal.
Many times it has been hard for me to restrain my laughter at the
serious look on Mr. Churchill's face. Suddenly he would become
aware of my presence. Then he would look up and smile one of
his charming, disarming and completely innocent smiles, the boy-
ish look, the relaxed look that those of us who served him loved
so much to see.

The discovery I made, after seeing this same march so many
times, was that though he did not know or care what he looked
like, his mind was free of its office fixtures and was concentrated
most exclusively upon a single aspect of the war's prosecution.
This way he engaged his problems one by one, and always had a
complete answer for the Cabinet Members who came down each
weekend to go over with him our latest emergency.

I made the discovery too that much the same sort of mental
liberation was granted him when looking at the cinema, and seem-
ingly the noisier and busier the story and the more compelling
its plot, the more it seemed to relax Ms mind* I do not know how
much support I might get from psychologists but I do know that
Winston Churchill could sit still for two hours looking at a film,
know in some detail what he'd looked at, but come away from
the session with a brand-new, full-blown revolutionary war plan
in his mind, He would thai take It directly to one of his secre-
taries and set it down in detail while its images were as sharp edged
and clean surfaced as shells on a sandbar.

174 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

Our visits to Chequers gave rise to many misgivings for the
safety of the Prime Minister. Enemy bombers were now beginning
to come over this spot in increasing numbers on their way from
London to the midlands. I recall one occasion when a German
bomber passed over, seemed to recognize the place or at least
to want to con it once more, and turned and repassed it, then did
the same thing from many different angles for a period of min-
utes. I now suppose that it was taking photographs of Winston's
country house for future reference and possible attack. Not long
after, it happened again, this time at night, and I went about the
grounds with my gun out and a guarded torchlight in my other
hand, poking its ray into hedges. Only this time I was sure the
German was preparing for a run in on the target. He was low,
his props were feathering, and he had illuminated half the county
with slowly descending parachute flares. Their brilliance is startling
and unsettling. The spread of illumination is both vast and unex-
pected and there is an astral and almost chilling quietude about
the light itself and the haunted aspect taken on by the countryside
when under such malign, impersonal scrutiny. Death is in it, and
the ghostly false calm of the moment-just-before-death, the baleful
silence, the preternatural ribbon of flight, the subtle sudden wink-
ing away, and the intensified silence after the bird of prey has
visited, seen and plans its own time for striking.

These visits had of course been noted by many hundreds of
people. I spoke to Mm of the advisability of sleeping from here on
in the air raid shelter. All who talked over the matter with him, in-
cluding Ms own Air Attache, felt sure it presaged a series of
planned attacks upon him. It was a form of assassination against
which I could not protect him. Here he would have to do what
he was told. Would he? Well, he said he'd cooperate the moment
he felt it wise to do so. TMs of course meant that he would do
what he pleased, wMch would be to stay outside and watch.

"Let me know when they start dropping the bombs," he said
to one of his aides, a young officer of Marines who had attempted
to reinforce my own cautions.

The next night the grounds of Chequers got well sprinkled by
high raiders, bombs going off like intermittent explosions in a sys-
tem of steam boilers. Scotland Yard had intercepted an interesting

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 175

item that made this particular tactic of more than passing concern.
The chances of killing Churchill by air bombs were not considered
very good; no better than our chances of killing Hitler in the same
way. It would be a happy luxury if it happened but nothing that
could be counted upon or even hoped for. But a planned attack
of dedicated raiders and suicide parachutists, landing in numbers
on the grounds of Chequers and advancing to a position known
to them and known to contain the person of Churchill at that time,
such a plan was well within the cunning of the Germans and it
had good chance of success. The bomb attack by high raiders
would end, doing its damage, but leave the neighborhood of
Chequers and the security about Churchill with a sense that the
attack was over, when in actuality it was just about to start. It
might be the signal that paratroops were at that precise moment
descending upon our premises.

We were ready for this too. Every outbuilding at Chequers was
manned and lethal. Every dovecote could spit death in any direc-
tion, and put a beam of light into the darkest recesses of shrubs
and hedges and trees.

I waited in the dark. I have heard parachutists land in the trees
at night, heard them cut their shrouds and climb down to earth.
But they were not coming that night. We developed, nonetheless,
as a result of that night, a new and secret "AM Clear." Every officer
assigned to the key job of keeping harm from Churchill was given
a plot of earth to scrutinize and, for a given number of seconds
at a given signal, this spot was illuminated. It would have been a
hard system to crack, for there was BO schedule in time. You
had to be at your own spot, completely Mddm, ready to deal with
whatever the sudden brief light might uncover.

When I had been at Chequers before, I was younger not only
in years but also in experience and confidence. I did not have quar-
ters within the great house and had never thoroughly explored it.
Now ? with Winston Churchill in residence, I explored it In detail.

Many of England's old houses have some form of mystery about
them. Or they have a mysterious legend. So did Chequers. It had
a "room." It was located on the top floor of the house, m the oldest
sectioa. DM I mention that the original masonry, all of which: is

176 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

still standing, was set together in 1086? That Is old, even In Eng-
land! It was, and is, known as the Prison Room.

A famous court lady was held captive there for two years. The
captive lady was Lady Mary Grey, sister of Lady Jane Grey. She
was held here during the latter part of the sixteenth century,
toward the end of the reign of Elizabeth. Her imprisonment was
ordered by Queen Elizabeth when it appeared that Lady Mary,
who was an heiress to the throne, was a threat to the Queen her-
self. In the Prison Room are still to be seen facsimiles of letters
which she wrote, begging for her release. Leading from the Prison
Room is a secret staircase which has a door opening on to the
floor below and which also leads on down to the ground floor.
The paneling of the rooms into which the staircase leads is craftily
joined. Unless one knows precisely where to look, the way out
cannot be quickly detected.

As the war stiffened and Hitler's hatred of Churchill grew ever
more splenetic, we kept Improving the safety factors and personnel
around him. The small guard of local police officers at Chequers
was inadequate. It originally was intended for little more than keep-
ing intruders from the vicinity. This group was not supplanted, but
it was supplemented by a continuous and self-relieving military
guard. Churchill didn't mind it in London, even in his own various
residences there, but he didn't like it at Chequers. It brought the
war into his gardens and into his private living. It brought up the
continuous minor Irritation of passwords, codes, new passwords,
identification problems, nervous challenges. It changed the atmos-
phere. It destroyed charm. It introduced suspicion, short temper,
and occasional nonsense. But it was all necessary.

It became almost ludicrously impossible to get into the house.
If we got a new sentry, for example, it was difficult sometimes for
me to get in. Military security officers are hard men and have to
be. One of their special duties is to travel about the country, ma-
terializing without warning in critical areas for the specific purpose
of testing defenses. They try to outchallenge sentries, bulldoze
guards, fool other security officers. They make many enemies but
they also uncover dangerous weaknesses. We could not function in
wartime without them.

On one occasion a major, by pure bluff, passed the sentry in the

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 177

checkpoint nearest my own quarters and did so without even
being challenged. Since I was in charge of security, I had advance
knowledge of a possible attempt, but I was amazed to see It come
off so slickly. But then, I had never before met anyone quite so
slick as that major either. He was suave and urbane and seemed so
instantly right in his surroundings that he was subconsciously
catalogued by sentries as being okay. This major tried to enter the
house itself and did so. Once having breached the house, he de-
cided to see how many rooms he could enter and how many
things he could touch before being challenged by the special
guards who maintained security for the interior of the house and
its occupants.

Inside the house he was challenged almost at once. His delib-
erately falsified papers were examined and found specious, but
his penetration of the so-called "critical distance 95 was done with
such ease and he had not been there before to study locations
that greater protective measures were put in force. Police officers
from London were deputized to take control with the guards at the
entrance gates and passing points. No unclassified person ever
escaped their vigilance during the whole of the war.

Guarding, when there is real and constant danger, is a strain on
community tempers. During the war I had many opportunities to
notice the attitude adopted by officers, and civilians too, toward
guards at places all over the map of England. I could understand
the state of mind of the sentries. They were always being bullied*
by the people they challenged or by their own officers who had re-
ceived severe complaints about them. On one occasion with Winston,
we were traveling by car with the officer commanding a western
stretch of English coast when we came to a road control that was
under this same officer's command. The cars were stopped by
sentries with fixed bayonets. A sergeant approached. The car in
which we were riding not only belonged to the O.C. but his own
flag was flying from the front of it The officer jumped out and
went after the sergeant, furious at being stopped. He rebuked the
sergeant unmercifully for not recognizing the car on sight, then
for not recognizing the flag, and finally for not recognizing him-
self, the Commanding Officer. The sergeant, though hurt by the
tongue-whipping, stuck to the point and refused to permit us to

178 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

pass until he had carefully gone over the credentials he forced us
all to show. Mr, Churchill did a gallant thing then. He compli-
mented the sergeant for his stubborn conscientiousness, and did so
within the hearing of the O.C. Later, just to make his point sink
in, he asked me to remind him to write a note of compliment to
the sergeant on official stationery.

It is this kind of thing that has helped keep England together.

Increased security at Chequers changed the appearance of the
place in addition to changing the domestic atmosphere of it. Every
roof contained a nest of spotters, most of them in telephone or
shortwave communication with observation locations from their
own position clear on out to the Channel as far north as Gree-
nock and as close to the continental shelf as the Cinque Ports.
We always had some advance warning before the bombs began
to come down.

How did Churchill live from day to day at Chequers? Many
people have asked me that. His weekends were alike as two peas.
Our Friday arrivals, usually about four, were like small invasions
of the House. There were always a carload or two of guests, Cab-
inet Members, Americans, European war leaders. Besides guests
he needed three secretaries, two of whom were ladies; his personal
assistant Commander C. R. Thompson (no kin of mine); a valet,
one detective besides myself, two film operators, three chauffeurs,
and extra London police for additional outside protection.

Mr. Churchill, upon arrival, would always first of all have his
bath. He was as insistent about this as the famous tenor Caruso
was reputed to have been. (He stopped our train in the mid-
dle of the Sudanese desert on one occasion and ordered hot
water to be brought from the engine's boiler! And there, beside
the tracks in a huge tub he'd seen in a goods car we were hauling,
he'd bathed with half of Africa agape. "You would think they
never saw nudity before.")

Bathed and refreshed, he would climb into Ms half comical and
thoroughly practical siren suit. He wore this to dinner. He did not
care what anyone else wore either and his dinner table was almost
always the ultimate in kcongruity of apparel. After dinner he
would retire for a moment, then come back dressed in one of his
gorgeous oriental dressing gowns. He always wore one of these

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 179

during the film showings. I never saw an exception to this. At the
conclusion of the showing, he would chat briefly with his guests,
then separate himself from them and go to work, his London staff
going on into the offices with him.

Usually he worked till 3 A.M., often till 4 A.M., sometimes
clear through the night He was awake at 8 A.M., never needing to
be called. He barked for the newspapers which were always right
outside his door. They were brought at once and curt "Good
morning's" were exchanged. He read papers while he ate break-
fast in silence. It was very dangerous to interrupt him during this
period. Phones were cut off and important people who had made
frantic efforts to get to him were sometimes, to their surprise and
irritation, kept waiting till he had rung to have his breakfast service
taken away. Then he shaved and bathed, but he did not dress yet.
Official bulletins were brought in. He moved about from chair to
chair, reading them- He lighted Ms first cigar, which presently
went out. He would chew on it for an hour before realizing it was
dead. He smoked few cigars, each one requiring relighting seven
times on the average. He did not inhale the smoke, but blew it
about in meditative balloons, often peering into them as if they
were fish pooh, or as if he might have dropped something of value
into their center and were seeking to locate it.

Breakfast was a main meal to the Prime Minister. It consisted
of ham, bacon or chipped beef (when meat was available),
small mountains of toast under a cover, a pot of tea and a jug
of milk with jam or jelly. He loved fish too and two or three mom-
ings a week would have a good-sized sole. Prowling about, after
bathing and shaving, and trying out one chair after another, often
percMng himself on the windowsill, he would read dispatches and
mutter. Often, too, he'd return to bed, leaning against a wall of
pillows that he kept plopping into more accommodating shapes.
There was a bedtable before Mm and at each side a sorbo rubber
pad for his elbows. Most of Hie morning he spent right there in
bed, working. Here, too, he received Ms most important callers,
and most of Ms heaviest decfsioiis were taken with these men,
under these conditions, in direct personal communication with
them.

The news dispatches and communiques were brought to Mm

180 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

in the same yellow box each morning. I carried it in one morning
and, seeing Ms hands were occupied with something else, opened
it for him and handed It to his bedside in this manner. I received
his instant reprimand. "That box must be opened only by me,
Thompson!" When he saw my chagrin, he softened matters at once
by saying: "It is quite all right this time, since you were trying to
help me, seeing my hands full But you will know in future," He
says these things only one time, and these solecisms are not re-
peated.

After his news reading and before his appointed callers begin
to come in, he has his staff of secretaries come by, one by one. He
gives each one a large amount of work, which they transcribe and
type while he is talking to callers. This continues until about one
o'clock. One of his secretaries has usually been kept in. the room
with him for half an hour or so, and at this time he dictates di-
rectly to the typewriter. This is for correspondence that is imme-
diately outgoing. There is always a secretary within call, since his
interviews sometimes require the sending of a quick message, re-
minder, or the re-emphasis of a matter not quickly enough taken
care of.

An example of his impatience and his technique for getting work
out of others with unparalleled dispatch occurred one morning
while I was attending him, He needed some special information
from the Admiralty. He asked me to telephone the Admiralty
offices and get a Captain So-and-so. The captain was a super-
conscientious naval officer, as proud of his four stripes as lie was
of his meticulousness in office matters. I handed the phone to Mr.
Churchill when the captain was on. "Good morning, Captain. This
is Winston Churchill. I want you to look up for me " "I'll call
you back first thing this afternoon, Mr. Churchill." "No, I'll wait,"
said Winston and he left the telephone open, immediately laying
it down on the bed before the captain could say anything that
Winston could hear. He grinned at me mischievously. While the
Prime Minister went on working, the captain began to dig. He was
soon back with what Churchill wanted. Three minutes. He thanked
Mm and hung up, then grinned at me again. "They can always
find it faster if they have to find it themselves." I never forgot this.

He could always cram into one day what no other man could

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 181

do; what few other men could do in two days, or even three. He
spared no one. Another occasion, comparable to the one above,
had to do with Lord Halifax. This little exchange took place in
my hearing upon our return from Paris, outside our plane at
Hendon Aerodrome. It was dusk. We'd all had a gruelling four
days in France, no sleep, and the tension of the trip over the
Channel. We were all of us physically worn clear through, Halifax
conspicuously so. Even Winston looked as if he was ready to give
up, but he turned to the group and said: "We'll have a Cabinet
meeting at ten o'clock tonight.' 5 Lord Halifax groaned. "We've
had a most exhausting time, Winston. Cannot the Cabinet meet-
ing be held tomorrow morning?" "Oh, yes. It has been tiring. To
be sure it has. I'll postpone it." "Good," said Lord Halifax. "Till
ten-thirty tonight," said Winston. "You may take the half-hour's
rest"

Winston Churchill often acted impulsively but it would be
wrong to think he ever acted capriciously. On many occasions
during the first two years of the war, often right after a film show-
ing, he would come down to the Great Hall locked up in deep
thought of his own, then go suddenly and alone to a small table
and play bagatelle. He would work seriously at this anything but
serious game, trying for the highest possible score, and jotting
down each result on a piece of paper with religious bookkeeping
exactness. Callers seeing such action for the first time went away
thinking it an odd caprice, and no doubt reporting it as such. But
it was not. When he walked away quickly from large groups and
did something alone with what very often appeared as spectacular
and unnecessary brusqueness, it was to be alone with a problem
until he could find his own answer to It He always came back with
one and laid it out thoroughly for those involved. And they always
expected it What they did not know was where Winston had got
It. He had got it, often, right there over the game of bagatelle, or
upstairs in the cinema room, or marching with crazy relentiessness
up and down the Great Hall to the whispered consternation of the
wife of a new British Cabinet Member on her first visit Or some-

182 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

times, I positively believe, he reached right in and grabbed it raw
and alive from the center of a billow of cigar smoke.

The war came out ahead in such meditations, Mrs. Churchill,
poor beautiful lady, was secondary, as must be the wife of any
famous public servant I have often seen how little time a Prime
Minister can have with his wife. At Ten Downing Street, work
and sleep went on from day to day with far less relaxation than
it ever did at Chequers or ChartweH Actually Winston and his
serene, beloved wife had precious little time together. I did not
envy her her position. If other women in Great Britain did, they
thought more of the honor than the price of it. "Clemmie" was of
course vastly proud of her husband's achievements. She was sus-
tained in another way too: her pride in his achievements was
satisfied by witnessing and sharing the rare experience of seeing a
great man fulfill his destiny; she saw it happening in their joint
presence, rather than recorded and engraved at monument bases
for the generations ahead.

This was going on while they were alive, not just something
that was guaranteed to preserve his name after he passed, and she
with him, into history. Mrs. Churchill knew this, and such mo-
ments and such hours as they did have together, or as they shared
with small groups, were the more exquisite to her for this reason.
A man can take some comfort in the knowledge that his name
and work will survive and have meaning and use long after his
death. Not so a woman. She wants all of her living to take place
while she is herself alive, partaking of the many courses at the
banquet table that can be laden in such plenitude only once. A
woman would sooner, the world over, be loved when living than
famous when dead. So it was here. One had a magnificent sense
of the indestructibility of the immediate present whenever these
two appeared together, and they felt it most of all.

While on this subject of Mr. Churchill's private life, many have
shown curiosity about how he works out a speech, how he sets
about writing it, whether he writes it or dictates it, how much
help he gets. I am asked repeatedly: "Does Winston Churchill
write his own speeches?" "Does he dictate them to a stenog-
rapher?" "Do they go directly into a typewriter?" and so on.

To the question "Does he write Ms own speeches?' 5 the answer

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 183

is a decided "Yes." He writes every word of Ms speeches. He
moves about rooms, declaiming, changing sentence structures, ask-
ing for lines or whole paragraphs to be read back to him. Often
he is looking down at jottings in his hand, thoughts put down pre-
viously and mentally studied over till the actual moments of
speech creation have arrived. Putting a speech together is a des-
perately exacting task of composition for him.

From the clerical side of it, he dictates to either of his two per-
sonal secretaries using a typewriter. He allows shorthand to be
used only when he is traveling by car. Sometimes speeches will take
their first form in this way. He answers a great deal of his official
mail while in motion, to and from Chequers or Chartwell, to and
from the buildings of Parliament, to and from his London flat or
residence he has eight or nine now. Directives on general office
matters are usually spun out quickly while he is in motion. All
such work is transcribed as soon as the typist comes in contact
with a typewriter.

When not in motion, his dictation is taken almost without ex-
ception, directly onto a typewriter. Special cases have been made
for the type of machine he likes, and these are taken on journeys,
long or short; different cases for plane, ship, or train.

He can stand any distraction except one: whistling. It sets up
an almost psychiatric disturbance in him immense, immediate,
and irrational. I have seen him expostulate with boys on the street
who were whistling as he passed and seen the look of them when
they stared after him, wondering 5 rather sorrowfully, if it indeed
could have been the great Winston Churchill who had done such
an unexpected and uncalled for thing. I have seen people make
whirling motions at their own temple, indicating their notion of
the condition of the wheels that were spinning in Winston's head,
then seen them catch themselves up in some horror for assigning
such derelictions to the Prime Minister.

Working for Churchill, especially when in motion, is not at all
easy. The movement of a train, not to mention the noise, does not
make for smooth notetaking or smooth typing, and makes more
difficult the exact reproduction of what he has said. Winston's
delivery, from the secretary's point of view, is good. In cold terms
of elocution, his enunciation, with that curiously sibilant pronun-

184 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

elation of some words, is not made any clearer when combined
with the noise of a fast-moving train. Winston has a touch of
Welsh in his speech too in that sounds formed within the buccai
cavity often do not come directly out of the mouth off the end of
the tongue, but leak briefly through the cheeks on the way. Any-
one who has listened critically to Mr. Churchill in a broadcast has
caught this. Any word commencing with a labial sound is likely
to result in the Welsh overtone and aftereffect. One hears the same
pleasing sound occasionally from the motion picture actor, Ray
Mffland, whose extractions are Welsh. Perhaps I heard so much
of it from David Lloyd George and his friends and Welsh relatives
in and around Criccieth that I am more conscious of it than others
might be. But it's there. One need not be a phoneticist to pick it
up.

Winston is never discourteous but always impatient. He will
give an intelligible, if somewhat weary, repetition of words not
distinguishable at the first hearing. One has to measure the prob-
ability of his impatience by the look and the sound of him. Many
times a guess, however wild, is infinitely preferable to asking,
"What did you say, sir?" Winston's impatience, without ever
showing the least rudeness, can produce the most primitive wrath.
It is hard to explain how the one can be so extreme without a sug-
gestion of the presence of the other, but it is true.

He likes work typed, usually with two copies. With the neces-
sary digital mechanics of typing, he has no patience. He is devoid
of respect in this area. His secretaries suffer a good deal because
of his appalling, almost childish, refusal to look at a typewriter, to
see what is going on with it. It comes from his feeling that neither
man nor circumstance has a right to impede or interrupt him. For
example, anyone with any experience of typing knows that to
insert innumerable carbons between sheets of crackling, flimsy
paper, to slip them into a machine, wind it, remove them at the
end of a page and, without pausing, insert another ordered set, re-
quires a finesse obtained only with experience and foresight Every
English-speaking person knows this except the Prime Minister.
He has no patience with the little delays this entails since type-
writers have been used in government offices. He'll go to his grave
having none either.

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 185

"Come on! Come on! What are you waiting for!" He'll fume
and pace about between pages, in these trifling pauses, as if battle
decisions hung on the interval. Just crackle these flimsies in process
of reinsertion and he'll splutter worse than ever; worse than any-
thing save whistling: "Don't fidget so with that paper! Stop it!"

Why does anyone take it? The answer is the same everywhere.
Everyone who works for him, loves Mm. They would literally all
die for him without a word. This is the truth.

Winston works himself without cessation. I have seen Ms secre-
taries, when waiting in rooms opposite the Cabinet Room, nod for
sleep when in the midst of actual dictation Ms delay over a
word or phrase permits them a moment without sound; seen them
come to with a great shock to realize the Presence has started
again and the secretary has missed the gist or even the whole first
half of Ms resuming sentence. Look out then! He too is weary.
He himself will sometimes be unable to keep his eyes open and
countless times, on a security tour, I've entered the Cabinet Room
or a study in the Ten Downing Annex at two or even three
in the morning to find the Prime Minister and one of his secre-
taries on opposite sides of a table, both with weary eyes closed.
My own opening and closing of the door would rouse them and
they would shake and resume.

When Mr. Churchill decides to compose a speech, he usually
gives Ms secretary good notice of it. She clears away all other
work and settles before the typewriter. Sometimes Winston forges
ahead with little apparent effort for many pages before inspira-
tion seems to run out. On other occasions he will pace up and
down the room, murmuring words and phrases over and over,
trying them out on himself, before he is satisfied that the exact
meaning has been put into words wMch cannot be misunder-
stood or mianterpreted. Warming to his subject, Mr. Churchill
will even enter so completely into what he is dictating that tears
will sometimes literally stream down Ms solemn face during the
evolving of a particularly dramatic passage. AE of Churchill's
writings have measurable emotional content. Similarly, when com-
posing some of his famous epigrams the humorous ones a
wholly delighted expression will come over his face and he will

186 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

chuckle at his own invention and look gleefully at Ms secretary to
see if he Is being adequately appreciated.

Churchill misses almost nothing. On one occasion early in the
war, while still First Lord of the Admiralty, he was dictating a
paper in a train concerning the Scharnhorst and Gneisnau. His
unfortunate secretary, not being on familiar terms with these
names, hesitated before typing them and gave the First Sea Lord,
Sir Dudley Pound, a beseeching look. She omitted the names and
went on with the following sentences, until the First Sea Lord
stealthily slipped her a scrap of paper on which he had printed
the two names. With a look of fervent gratitude she turned back
the paper to insert them, but the action attracted the attention of
Mr. Churchill who immediately wanted to know what was hap-
pening. Out it had to come! It called forth some scathing com-
ments on her lack of spelling ability, very much undeserved at
that time as the ships in question had only begun to steam into
the picture.

When a speech has been dictated and typed in its first draft,
Winston takes the typed sheets and goes over them carefully, word
for word, erasing here and substituting there, until he can see no
further cause for complaint. The whole is then retyped. This
process is repeated two or three times. Finally it is put into what
is known as "speech form." This consists of arranging the matter
on octavo sheets of paper in what looks like a form of blank verse.
Paragraphs, sentences and even phrases are separated to facilitate
delivery when the time comes. And when it does come, he deviates
hardly at all from the finished script.

Broadcasts are treated rather differently. The preparing of the
subject matter takes much the same form, but the finished article is
typed on quarto paper though with similar "verses" and inset
lines. He gives himself a few marginal stage directions, indicating
where pauses and special emphases are to fall.

A habit of Mr. Churchill's which might well be the undoing of
a secretary new to his work is that of asking at the end of each
page of dictation for the number of words which have been writ-
ten. This involves keeping a mental note of the number of lines to
a page, with an approximate idea of the number of words to fill a

ASSIGN ME NT: CHURCHILL 187

line. As each page is finished, he will say: "How many?" and he
will expect to be given an immediate answer.

Nothing is allowed to interrupt his train of thought when he Is
dictating. One summer evening in the country when he had opened
wide the windows to let in the cool night air, a bat flew in. The
room was large and it would be reasonable to suppose it could ac-
commodate Mr. Churchill, his secretary and the invading bat. The
secretary, however, found it difficult to concentrate on txping with
a large bat diving about over her head. She was terribly afraid of
bats anyhow, as are most women. Continued instinctive ducking
on her part caused Mr. ChurchiE to ask her what was the matter.
On its being explained to him, he said: "Surely you're not afraid
of a bat, are you?" On being told bluntly that that was the exact
trouble and no other, he replied grandly; "Til protect you! Get on
with your work!" She went on ducking while he went on dictating.

At various times during the war, mention has been made of
Mr. Churchill's rest hour. He takes one every day. It is usually
in the late afternoon or early evening. I have been asked whether
he takes a nap in a chair, lies down on a settee or really goes to
bed. The latter is the case. He undresses entirely and, contrary to
many statements, does not wear pajamas. He gets into bed and, If
the room is not completely dark, he covers his eyes with a black
satin bandage, at least one of which I keep in my own possession
at all times, to hand him wherever we might be. He will slip this
bandage on in the back seat of a car and sleep hard for ten min-
utes or a full hour. He slips it on in planes.

As soon as Mr, Churchill's head touches a pillow, he is asleep,
I was later to discover this was also true of President Roosevelt
Both men put all activity out of their minds and at once sur-
rendered. With Winston he could be asleep before his last caller
was out of his room. So if he wished for one hour's sleep, lie did
not need two hours in bed. He needed only the one hour, getting
that amount without having to wait to drift off.

He has a special pillow and can at once tell his own if it be-
comes mixed up with many others. If sleeping in a moving car,
after putting on the black band he will curl his head down into
his chest like a hen and remain motionless to the journey's end,
Many times he has remained asleep in the car for some minutes

188 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

after arrival. We do not wake Mm unless something urgent re-
quires his attention.

The Prime Minister has never forgotten how to shoot either
rile or revolver. We set up an outdoor range at Chequers and to
this he would frequently repair and fire a hundred rounds or so
with his Mannlicher rifle, fifty rounds from his Colt .45, or an
equal number from his .32 Webley Scott He gets well on to the
target with all three, but with the Colt Automatic he Is absolutely
deadly. In 1945, when he was seventy, Mr. Churchill took frequent
target practice with me, or with both my colleague and me. There
would be little chance for anyone who came within range of his
gun. A gun Is something he understands entirely. It never thinks
back at you as does, for example, the rudderbar or stick of a plane
in flight. A gun has one duty and does It at once. It is as depend-
able as the man firing It and gives instant and sensible answer to
pressures properly applied. It never argues. But all other machinery
argues and he is in constant warfare with it.

He distinguished himself many times during the war when he
tested weapons. I have mentioned somewhere his accuracy with a
U.S.A. carbine (a fine weapon), in company with General Eisen-
hower. Near the war's end, while practicing with me at outdoor
targets, with officers of the guard in competition and firing an old
Colt .45, only one of Churchill's bullets was on the fringe of the
bullseye, the other nine being dead center. This target was taken
down and marked by me and noted by those who were with him
then. Later I had it officially altered and dated and it is now in
the Chequers library.

But any sequence of movement requiring coordination was out-
side his skills. He was the worst driver in England and would have
been its worst pilot. People stayed out of his way on the dance
floor. But shooting and painting occupations that took expert-
ness of eye and steadiness of muscle but that were never at the
mercy of timing and that never needed integrating with human
or mechanical factors at these he excelled.

One day, soon after taking over the rooms provided for him at
Number Ten Annex, he issued an order to the whole British
government against whistling in the corridors. Many times, in the
midst of meetings, upon hearing whistling after the posting of Ms

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 189

order, lie has dispatched the person nearest him to fly outside and
find and silence the culprit. I was accompanying him early one
morning down King diaries Street. We were on our way from
the Annex to Downing Street. A boy passed, whistling loudly
not too well. But he was a pleasant enough looking boy, and half
saluted Winston by a lift of his eager brows as youngster passed
statesman. "Stop that whistling!" Churchill thundered. "Whatever
for?" the boy properly challenged. "It's a horrible noise!" "Then
shut your ears!" the boy hurled back upon the astonished Prime
Minister. The boy returned to Ms enjoyment fuD blast. We crossed
the road into the Foreign Office Yard. I saw a slow smile break
over Winston's face. He repeated the boy's words aloud to him-
self, and chuckled. Then he looked up at me. "Shut your ears,"
he said. "Shut your ears!"

Another "whistling" anecdote had to do with the Horse Guards.
Every morning at eleven o'clock (ten o'clock on Sundays) to a
fanfare of seventeenth century silver clarions, the King's Life
Guard is mounted by one of the regiments of the Household
Cavalry at the Horse Guards. To us in England it is familiar and
expected and rather the right thing at that time. For here Charles II
stabled his troop horses, and on the tilting yard behind, tie Tedors
held their tournaments. It is famous and beautiful The clarions
make a lovely blast, and there is a fine sound of hoofs. Winston
was at work in bed, while all the orthodox sounds rose up to Ms
room, leaving him undisturbed. Then some weak little sidewalk
whistling also got up to Mm. This he heard. He began to roar to
me and to his personal secretary. "Open that window!" he roared.
She did so, trembling. "Now tell that dainn fool to stop whistling! 7 *
She looked out, saw the majesty of the Horse Guards Parade.
"You cannot interfere with a member of the public on the high-
way,** she protested. To her astonishment, apart from some growl-
ing, the PJML said mo more,

On May 26, 1940, Boulogne fell to the Germans. Another ter-
rible thing happened. King Leopold ordered Ms armies to capit-
ulate. They did. Winston wept Our flank was left exposed to the
Germans. The Nazi commander realized he had our army, and
part of the French anny, in a trap. For some few days the fight-

190 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

kg became extremely fierce. We flew over the agonies that were
taking place below us at Calais. You could see hand-to-hand en-
gagements. Though in this circumscribed single scrap only about
four thousand troops were involved, including one thousand
French, their defense of the town against four times that many
Germans has become a short paragraph in that war's history. The
Nazi commander demanded the surrender of the garrison. This
reasonably proper request was treated, however, with unusual
contempt. In continuing so stubbornly there, assistance was being
indirectly given to our main army in their retreat toward the coast.
Of the gallant defenders of Calais, only thirty survivors got away
twenty-one Britishers and nine French. The Navy got a boat
in for them. The others died shooting.

At the end of May, the resistance of our main army cracked.
It did not crack altogether or all in one place. That would be un-
British. But we were doomed there. We knew it. They knew it in
England. It is a terrible thing to be exhausted, to be thirsty, to be
lost. Weariness is the great conqueror.

About a quarter of a million men reached the beaches of Dun-
kirk. Here they stood or sat or just stared while they were shot
up and shot at by understandably gloating Germans. Germans al-
ways gloat over their winnings and beg and bawl when they
get hurt.

England knew in some detail the tragedy that was forming here.
Most Englishmen, even though they had never been across the
Channel themselves, could see the place where their countrymen
stood; could hear the unspoken cry across the water. Then over
the wireless, the call came. The call for ships of every sort, size
and seaworthiness. To go to Dunkirk. There was not that night
one man or woman in all England who would not willingly have
given all he had or held dear for this chance to help or to perish
trying. Most Englishmen live in a lifelong state of active skepti-
cism and well-controlled irritability but they die well. Many were
dying now.

By day and by night craft of every conceivable description set
sail, with no protection from German divebombers, and put out
for the Continent's coast. You know the story. There have been
rescues before but there was never one like this. In four days we

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 191

got off alive two hundred and Ifteen thousand British and one
hundred and twenty thousand French. But the Channel, for weeks,
was choked with corpses not Infrequently the body of an Eng-
lish girl. Everybody did something for Dunkirk. Thirty thousand
never found their way back. But among the fighting troops who
did reach England, all who were unhurt or recovered from their
wounds were rested, refitted, and back fighting within six weeks
or less. Filers who engaged the strafing Germans during those
four days and five nights have told me they estimated there were
seventeen thousand craft of one sort or another that got Into the
water. Many of them of course were In salt water for the first time.

While the story of Dunkirk was being engraved in history, we
had to fly to Paris for emergency talks. The Germans had now
formed an unbroken arc from Sedan to Abbeville. From the plane
window, we looked down upon the masses of struggling French
humanity: refugees hurrying away before the Germans with their
sad possessions piled in carts, prams and on the backs of old men.
It all seemed even more horrible than Dunkirk. It was the most
pitiable spectacle I have ever seen of the living.

Winston turned to me: "How many do you think we have
evacuated from Dunkirk?*'

"I do not even know the number of troops we had in Belgium,"
I answered him. (Dunkirk's count was still untabulated. ) Winston
would never let a man go if he merely said he knew nothing; he'd
make the man guess. He did this to me. And I guessed. "Fifty
thousand," I said.

"Do you know, Thompson," he said, "I would have answered
yesterday that we would be lucky if we got away safely twenty or
thirty thousand."

"I hope it will be substantially more than that when we know
the whole of it," I said.

He grinned then. "It Is now ninety thousand." He sat back
against the seat. "Back in England." He looked at the celling,
then leaned out and peered down into France again. "And more
landing every hour." We began to come down to land, in a very
steep descent.

For the day and night we were in France, Winston did not sleep.
He kept getting bulletins on Dunkirk. About four-fifths of the

192 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

original British Expeditionary Force got back. The last to leave
the coast was Lord Gort, the Commander-in-chief. "The next
time victory will be ours," he said. But the Germans were pouring
through the rip they'd made after crossing the Meuse.

Our land army here was now smashed. It had lost all its
equipment. The Germans were flying ahead, taking every French
town in their way. They now controlled all the Channel ports.
This is a terrible situation in a war, when you live on an island
and try to fight on a mainland.

It was impossible to meet in Paris because of the proximity of
the German army. The Supreme War Council met in a place
called La Miguel. There were the usual exchanges of greeting and
the now almost comical announcement to the press that we were
all resolved to pursue a policy of the closest possible concord,
hold to it through the present struggle and emerge with a com-
plete victory behind us. I did not believe they meant it then. They
did not look it. They looked licked and sick: Marshal Petain,
General Weygand, Reynaud, and Admiral Darlan (who was to be
assassinated on the Christmas Eve coming) .

The meeting was held in a large chateau, quite pretty. Germans
had been parachuting into the territory. My orders were to stand
within touching distance of Churchill. He would occasionally get
fearfully sick of me who can blame him? but we had to bear
each other. And I can firmly tell you that there was many a mo-
ment when I could have celebrated being away from the Old Man,
the dignity of time and my own gathering years now permitting
this revelation.

I was struck by the fact that Petain sat in a side room far from
the others, a long distance from the room being used as the Coun-
cil Chamber. Mostly, too, Petain walked in the grounds during
discussions, paying no attention to them. From time to time M.
Reynaud would come from the Council Chamber and converse
very earnestly with the Marshal, then rush back into the meeting
again. Petain appeared to me an unwilling participant in the talks.
I was surprised, later, to read that he had been present during all
the talks when he had really been absent.

Late that afternoon word came that Italy had chosen that day
and hour when our defeat seemed assured to declare war on

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 193

Great Britain and France. We were indeed beset by difficulties
everywhere. The evacuation of Norway was in progress and not
going well. France wanted to get out of the war, and who could
blame her bleeding men, lost children and worn-out women?
France has borne a lot. Too much.

Yet Mr. Churchill was hourly putting all he had in ingenuity,
human speech, exhortation, in one meeting after another of in-
creasing tension and expanding despair, to keep France in the
war. He searched every means of Ms mind and experience that
would enable them to carry on.

We flew back and forth often these days. On the 13th of June
we flew to Tours, and came down in the descent that now invari-
ably brought the haunted faces of refugees fleeing south, south
forever south. How they hated everything upon this earth and the
slime of the German most of aH! You could see hatred every-
where. It was so raw then and there that I knew it would never
heal. It won't either.

The hatred in the face of a French duchess seemed both artic-
ulate and lethal. We had landed, and somehow a meal had been
procured in a local restaurant. I could not eat any food at all.
Refugee faces peered in at us. I put down my spoon and stood
near Churchill, waiting for the others. They had no more appe-
tite than L Torrential rain was falling outside. It was not cold but
It was unbearably depressing. Then I saw the face. She was stand-
ing, waiting in the courtyard. She had no gun (though we found
a knife on her person later). You could look into her eyes and
teH two things: that she was a killer and that she was after
Churchill. I stood where I could watch her but where she would
never notice me, I drew my gun and nonchalantly moved down
upon her in the courtyard. All she realized was that I was not
Churchill. She ignored me, Churchill did not know he was in
danger. He never knows from us almost sever. For a duchess
she could surely move. She scorned to go through the air after
him. I caught her and silenced her hysterics. She was certain this
was the Englishman who was responsible for the present condi-

194 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

tlon of France. I have never been so rough with a woman since
the suffragettes in World War L

We got to the aerodrome and took off again for England.
There was a sea mist very close to the surface but it was bright
above. We felt alone and safe, but a moment after I had relaxed
we went into a steep dive that flung Winston into the back of the
seat. A German Heinkel had swept in near us. Our pilot dove,
a terribly dangerous maneuver but the only one possible. The
Heinkel dove with us, shooting. We got down into the sea mist.
This was worst of all. Twice through the fog I saw the spars and
slatting sails of fishing boats. The Heinkel let go a burst at two
fishing boats as we flattened out together, then we lost each other
in the ground fog that had blown to sea. The steep dive and the
gamble that we wouldn't crack up, though we kept kissing the
wave-tops, was all that saved us on that trip. It was an odd feel-
ing. Then I knew if we hit something we'd never know it anyhow,
and out of an almost passionate exhaustion and a deep, accumu-
lated fury at our total circumstance, I went sound asleep right
there in all that roar and mess.

That night, back in London, Churchill was to get a great and
sudden lift over the flashed words of President Roosevelt accusing
Italy of "striking the dagger into the back of his neighbor."

This lift of spirit lasted less than two days. The most dreaded
thing of all then, inexorably, happened. Winston kept in constant
touch with Reynaud. And Reynaud flew often to England where
they would meet at Admiralty House. But his position with the
French government was at an end. On the 16th of June he quit.
Marshal Petain took over.

That day was fateful for France. Disaster was now inevitable.
Churchill told me to arm well; told me he was well armed. We
were to take a very special and secret journey. We were to travel
by destroyer* by submarine, and by airplane. Our takeoff point
was conventional enough: Waterloo Station. I had been in it over
a thousand times.

Our train was wailing. It looked innocent enough. I went into
our compartment, poking about its meager accommodations, and
then declared it secure for him. He came in. He sat down imme-
diately and took a deep breath. He would sleep now for a few

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 195

moments. I stood in the doorway. A courier rushed up. He had a
small folding dispatch case. He showed Ms Identifications, Includ-
ing new signals and password. He answered challenge correctly. 1
took him in to Churchill who opened the message.

This tireless, exhausted, unbelievable man wept for a moment
as if it were the one disappointment too many or the one final,
destroying blow then summoned me oS the train with a jerk of
his head.

Petain was at that very instant asking the Germans for an
armistice. This was the blow beyond bearing.

We drove back to Downing Street. He flashed word to the French
government that there was no release from treaty obligations
sacredly drawn with us and that the French leet had to be sent
to a British port. During the night we got sputtering and uncer-
tain assurances from the French OB this point.

Of course It was hard for the French to surrender their fleet to
the British, or to anchor it suddenly in waters safe to us, then
face the wrath of the Germans when laying down thek arms to
them.

The period of waiting which followed this was a cruel strain oa
Churchill, a strain on all. You will now recall that Winston
Churchill had a plan then (and to this day insists it Is sensible
if not the only ultimate scheme of salvation that mankind has
left) , a plan whereby Frenchmen and Englishmen would become
as one nation, and in which the French army, navy and air force
should make their way with all possible speed to North Africa
and there carry on the fight These were more than frantic jug-
gUngs and desperate improvisations churned up when the cauldron
started to boil over. They were revolutionary ideas that had great
practical sense, and they were generated in his mind many months
before the first shot. Long before Poland in fact

What an immense idea it would have been! Just one example
of what it would have salvaged: if the Churchill plan had been
put into operation, we should never have lost control of the
Mediterranean.

France fell. On June 18th, Mr. Churchill dealt with this catas-
trophe in the House of Commons. He also laid the British Empire
on the line before all the world. He said the Empire would, come

196 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

what may, continue the fight to the end; to the last drop of blood
and to the last shilling. He repeated that if final victory should
reward these efforts and these risks, the French people would
share in this victory and their full freedom would be restored to
them. He included also all the countries that had been overrun
by the Nazis.

He reminded his listeners that now that the battle of France
was over, the battle of Britain was about to commence, and he
finished with these words:

"Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear
ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last
for a thousand years, men will say: 'This was their finest hour. 9 "

This shook and thrilled the Island. Every Englishman knew
that we now stood alone against the might of Germany. It gave
us all a composed confidence, and a dreadfully fatalistic accept-
ance of attack, inyasjpn, and death.

On June 21 the French plenipotentiaries were received by the
Fuhrer in the same railway carriage in which Marshal Foch had
dictated terms of armistice to the Germans in 1918. It is simple
to imagine the humiliation of the French, that day in the forest of
Compiegne, sitting in this railway carriage.

TMs was Hitler's greatest instant of triumph. It was well photo-
graphed, as you remember even to the exultant detail of Hitler
dancing Ms little jig when he could repress his jubilation no
longer. It was very close to funny, except for the dead behind
him and those yet to die and the pervasive insanity this gesture
memorialized

France was broken. The terms had to be accepted. By June 24,
when Italy also signed an armistice with France, the war in the
West was proclaimed by Hitler to be at an end.

If this was Hitler's greatest triumph of the war, it was also the
forerunner of one of his many mistakes. Out of the debris arose
General de Gaulle (whom Churchill could never endure) with Ms
Free French Movement to band together loyal Frenchmen every-
where. I do not believe anyone could stand de Gaulle but I am
also very certain that he was a real man.

There remained the enigma of the French fleet. We got no
satisfactory answer from the French government Very much

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 197

against our will and tradition we were forced to take steps in
various ports Oran especialy to prevent parts of the French
fleet falling into the hands of the enemy. To me, this is still the
one great dilemma. France knew we had to do It yet never for-
gave us. It makes me ill to think of it. It is most painful to write
it. Churchill and I were there at the site of this wreckage only a
few weeks after we had shelled and destroyed some of the finest
units in the French navy. Many died. I expected repeated attempts
on Churchill's life and we were heavily prepared for it.

I shall not angle this to what might be construed as the British
side, but the instance of Bordeaux is worth citing here. Before we
shelled the French fleet, it was clear to all military and naval
leaders in Britain that the French, to gain favor with their Ger-
man masters, were assisting the latter much to our disadvantage.
In Bordeaux there were four hundred German pilots prisoners
of war. They had been shot down by the Royal Air Force, picked
up and interned. Because they were our rightful prisoners, their
being returned to us was part of the agreement between Churchill
and the French government Following the change in this govern-
ment, these German fliers were returned to Germany, not to us.
All of them were absorbed into the Goering arm that within a
few days began to knock down our cities.

No professional warrior would object to the Germans* interest
in securing a great fleet and the French fleet was in every sense
a great one from a captured nation and using it against an
enemy. Hitler would have turned French naval guns on the British
Isles. He'd have held pistols to the heads of the French if he
couldn't get the guns fired any other way. Everyone knew this.
There was only one thing to do when the French refused to sur-
render their fleet or to take it out of Hitler's reach and scuttle it:
immobilize the ships. Decommission them. Silence their guns.
Sink them. Burn them. Deactivate them by whatever means there
were.

The French returned our fire. (We, I am sure, under the same
conditions, would have returned theirs.) So we steamed in close
and did a thorough job.

But there was no shame in any of this action, only an unuttera-
ble pity.

198 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

There were many instances like Bordeaux that fed our fears,
examples that made it evident that the French nationals were in-
terpreting their obedience to Marshal Petain in an actively anti-
British way. Corsica was another, not unlike Bordeaux. So was
the token opposition in Madagascar.

Germany was feeling its first real pinch through the loss of
many of her experienced pilots, so France's action in regard to the
prisoner pilots in Bordeaux was of enormous benefit to Hitler.
Hitler's invasion barges were appearing in rapidly growing clusters
across the Channel from the Cinque Ports. We knew we were in
for it. Russia jumped in here, demanding Roumania return Bes-
sarabia and Bukovina and the territory was ceded without blood-
shed, almost without protest.

I went with Churchill to Harwich on June 26 to guard him
during his inspection of our defenses against German invasion.
A week later, July 4 in my notebook, Mr. Churchill announced
with sincere regret, and without any mitigation, the true facts
in regard to our shelling of the various French men-o j -war. He
detailed to the ton the damage we had inflicted. There was grief
everywhere. We had never before been called upon to fire on our
own Allies. Petain of course broke with us in consequence.

The one great irony of the Battle of Oran was that the biggest
ship we destroyed there was the twenty-six-thousand-ton Dunkirk.

At the end of Churchill's report of all this sad news to his
Cabinet and to the House of Commons, we came back in the
darkness. It was quite hot. There were planes up. Churchill said
nothing. My mind went over the crush of events through which
we had just now passed. The list was staggering:

German armies had invaded Belgium and Holland, They had
fired Rotterdam. Queen Wilhelmina had fled her throne. The
Dutch army had capitulated. The Germans had reached the Eng-
lish Channel at Abbeville. Brussels and Boulogne had fallen. Four
hundred thousand British and French had been stranded helpless
at Dunkirk. Italy had declared war on us. Verdun had been cap-
tured. Paris had been evacuated by the French, then occupied by
Nazis. Petain had replaced Reynaud and asked the Germans for
an armistice. General de Gaulle represented the only resistance
France had to offer. The French scuttled some of their ships at

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 199

Toulon. We rained most of the rest of her navy in North Africa.
Petain set up a government at Vichy that broke with us. England
had no allies and no sign of allies. We were standing by, expect-
ing invasion and not ready for it. Laval was designated as Petain's
deputy.

Ail these staggering blows had struck Churchill when he had
not yet been Prime Minister for eight weeks.

Hitler began to bomb England severely in the early part of
August. London was getting hit harder and oftener. What was the
British reaction to all this? I think it was astonishment, first of all
Then, in turn, apprehension, bitterness, and anger. We thought,
somewhat naively, that service establishments would be hard hit,
and factories of all kinds. But it was hard for the British mind to
get used to the German purpose; that this was to be very indis-
criminate going from the start. We had fewer planes and fe\ver
pilots, but the quality we had of both was better than the Ger-
mans, You could stand in a city square and merely look into the
sky and watch the relative skills of battling fliers in performance.
We were inflicting devastating losses upon their planes and their
flying personnel.

Meantime they were smashing up England.

The damage being done upon our homes and places of business
and means of domestic transport brought a sharp focus upon that
force still called the Local Defense Volunteers. Soon they were
called the Home Guard.

This body of men now numbered one million. There were many
veterans of World War I among them. There was a temptation to
scoff at them. Nothing infuriated Winston more. He would lash
anyone who raised a voice against this guard, grotesque and an-
cient though some of its elements surely looked. 6C Do not scoff at
the Home Guard!" he would snarl. "They may be the means of
saving this country!"

One day, reports came to us that scores of hundreds of dead
bodies of uniformed Germans, some of them badly burned, were
washing up on beaches up and down our eastern coast and clear
down to the Cinque Ports. I am certain their barges took off on
many more occasions than this. And we had a system that was

200 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

devised to convert, without warning, great areas of the Channel
waters to fire by floating huge stores of gasoline to the surface
and Igniting these areas by remote electric contact if the Germans,
In large numbers, penetrated this far in an invasion attempt.
Much of this is still secret.

Under heavy guard we took Winston Churchill to a secret
aerodrome in the southwest of England where he was shown the
Stirling bomber and the Typhoon and Whirlwind fighters. They
performed wonderfully, and from that day production went ahead.
They since have more than proved their worth. My son Fred made
forty-two successful flights in a Stirling as a Pathfinder, over Ger-
man or enemy-occupied territory. He did not come back from
the forty-third.

Germany kept us informed, day and night, of what we were in
for: that London would be wiped out, ports and harbors blasted
and rendered useless. It looked not only as if they might do it; it
looked as if they were doing it The damage from daylight attacks
on the London docks was awful to see. The attack on this dock
area was of course a legitimate war target but it hit us in our ship-
ping at a time when it seemed about all we had left. Great damage
to foodstuffs was caused. The fires were often enormous, but what
was even more arresting and defeating was that they were so
numerous. There were just too many to put out. They would go
on burning for days. Then another smash would start them all
again. Picture for yourself the firemen, many of whom had never
fought fires before, spraying water on buildings while the fumes
of pepper, rum, paint, and burning grain filled their nostrils.

Winston would stand with them, cursing and sweating and look-
ing into the sky.

Hitler made a mistake in failing to reckon with the RAF.
Goering kept bragging that the German planes and pilots were
not only more numerous than ours, which was true, but that they
were superior to ours, which was untrue. Incoming records began
to show this statistically.

The Battle of Britain lasted from August, 1940 to October*
In that time our pilots destroyed over 2,300 German planes. We
lost three hundred pilots killed in the same period and the same
number wounded. j

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 201

Almost daily, in ever-increasing numbers, dive bombers and
bombers, escorted by fighters, attacked this country, with London
the prime target. They were met each time, usually well out over
the Channel, by intercepting fighters who engaged them with the
utmost vigor. Often they would fight to their last round, then
land and refuel quickly and resume the battle.

An air attack over your own city is a most dramatic thing. And
in a strange way, it is also spiritually moving to a high degree.
Owing to the frequent approach of hostile aircraft at all times
now, watchers were posted on building tops to give warning.
Churchill named these watchers "Jim Crows." The name stuck
throughout the war.

At the beginning of the Battle of Britain, on hearing the Alert,
the Prime Minister would carry on his work and even when the
bell was rung he ignored every request to go into the air raid
shelter.

He hated to be shut in. Often with the guns going and the
enemy overhead, he would walk into the garden at Number Ten,
wearing his steel helmet Sometimes, when it would slide over his
eyes as he was trying to watch the sky, he would send the thing
scaling into a hedge. He also ignored the cigar rule. In fact, the
Prime Minister ignored anything that he wanted to ignore.

However, he was typical of thousands of English men and
women, whose interest and excitement in what was going on was
infinitely greater than their fear of what might happen to them as
individuals. I am sure Churchill would never have entered a shel-
ter at any time during the whole war but for the fact that those
around Mm, sharing his dislike for confinement, could hardly be
expected to take shelter when the Prime Minister felt it to be so
poor an idea as not to bother about it. Yet he very much enjoyed
herding masses of people into the underground entrances. It
satisfied his patriarchal feelings of responsibility to them, although
they just wanted to watch too and so much the better the fun if
they could do so alongside the Old Man. And if he insisted on
their going down to safety, they did so with reluctance, no more
deceived by his boyish method than they were grateful for protec-
tion they didn't want.

As time went on, his contempt for the bombing became ex-

202 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

treme. It grew quickly, in fact It grew till It became absolute. Then
he was most difficult indeed. He is a heavy man and hard to
throw around, though this was many times necessary. He and his
staff would carry on, working either in his bedroom or in the
Cabinet Room on the ground floor.

During the days of the colossal air battle, Mr. Churchill did not
refrain from visiting the dangerous areas or those that had been
plastered with bombs. Sometimes in standing at the edge of a
crater, surrounded by the intense devastation of a whole block or
cluster of homes and shops, he would stare and talk, chatting
with survivors, listening to then* recounting of what had happened
to them. And he would silently and without any shame or embar-
rassment weep without speaking and for many minutes.

We went to Dover and Ramsgate. While at Dover Castle an
Alert sounded and from the cliffslde we could see the approach
of the German bombers and the resulting clash when our fighters
attacked. The battle went on over our heads for several moments.
During the fighting, dodging and shooting, two German planes
came down into the sea, perhaps half a mile from where we stood
and watched. It thrilled us all to see the enemy in flames, hur-
tling down at terrific speed, to meet the rock-hard sea with a
splash, a roar, a hiss and a fountain of exploding waters.

Within a matter of seconds, three small RAF sea rescue
launches put to sea and darted out of the harbor to pick up the
pilots who had bailed out. They could be seen drifting away from
the land, toward rougher water far from shore. Contrary to our
methods of sea rescue work of bailed out pilots, the Germans used
rafts supplied with all kinds of food and first aid material, the
pilot having to reach the raft by his own effort, although German
rescue planes, painted white with Red Cross markings on them,
patrolled up and down, supposedly to assist the pilots to find
these rafts.

One would wish to be able to record a single fine strain of no-
bility or humanity in the Germans. I cannot do so. It is not there.
It is commonly known that the Germans have no respect for such
emblems as the Red Cross. During the course of this same tour
with Churchill in the southeast, we were able to examine one of
these planes which had been captured by us while patrolling the

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 203

Channel. It was fitted with radio and was in actual fact acting
as a reconnaissance aircraft, the logbook, found intact, showing
her duty.

Driving from Dover to Ramsgate, we saw a fighter plane shot
down and Churchill immediately asked our driver to take us as
close to the point where it would crash as we could get. We ar-
rived at the spot. Churchill jumped out and proceeded on foot,
with me at Ms side. This was an unnecessary risk, as the Germans
did a great deal of strafing and always shot off whatever they still
had aboard before scooting for home again. Firemen had arrived
just before us. Flames were shooting up. We had not been able to
determine whether it was a German fighter or one of our own.

"I hope to God it isn't a British plane!" Churchill remarked. He
walked right up to the blazing craft. To the relief of us all, we
found it was a German and that the pilot had bailed out.

We went on to Ramsgate. The raiders had done a good job
there. It was badly smashed up. A restaurant had been one of
the places hit. Mr. Churchill, accompanied by Sir Kingsley Wood,
Chancellor of the Exchequer, entered the premises. The Prime
Minister spoke for some time to the proprietor, who was not
badly hurt. But he told Winston that he had lost everything when
his place of business had been destroyed. On leaving the scene
Mr. Churchill turned to Sir Kingsley, saying: "We must arrange
for compensation for shopkeepers in cases like this. Will you work
out a scheme? We must help them. We must help them all. This
man has lost Ms livelihood." TMs was later done upon our return
to London.

An Alert sounded as we stood there. The mayor of Ramsgate
urged the party to descend into Ramsgate's famous air raid shelter,
It is huge and unbelievable cool, and a bit eerie. It is cut into
the chalk under the town.

Before we entered the tunnel, Mr. Churchill lighted a cigar and
hung his steel helmet on Ms Mp. He was told at the entrance he
might not smoke in the shelter. A number of men were waiting
to go in to the shelter and one of them, on hearing the request
that the Prime Minister not carry in a lighted cigar, asked for and
was given the cigar much to Ms delight The raid continued but
the man stood happily above, puffing a fine cigar.

204 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

The Ramsgate population seemed familiar with its situation.
Some were standing in groups chatting; others reading under fair
light. A local newsboy, who did not consider that the Alert should
seriously interfere with his job in life, went along the tunnel
shooting "Paper!" The boy recognized Mr. Churchill and nudged
the famous man in the flank. Churchill turned, a bit surprised at
such familiarity. Then he saw a newsboy with a fresh paper.
Winston cannot resist newspapers. He gave the boy a two-shilling
piece.

From Ramsgate we went on to Manston Aerodrome. Great
damage had been done here. Our planes could still take off and
descend here but all about was the litter of crashed Germans. It
was comforting to see the evidence of the toll our men had taken
of the invader.

The conversations which Winston had here indicated that in
the judgment of those in command of our defenses against air
attack in the Battle of Britain, the Germans were now very close
to their peak efficiency and that if we could hang on, even a few
days more, they would pass this peak and the climb down would
begin, whereas we in turn would begin to improve our own posi-
tion. The crisis was just ahead.

The days of air battle continued with our Air Force unceas-
ingly taking toll of the enemy all over the south of England. One
day we traveled to Fighter Command where we were to follow
an air attack which was expected to be made that day.

Shortly after we arrived, a large force of German aircraft com-
menced their journey from the Continent toward England. We
were able to follow on animated maps with mechanically operated
plane models the approaching bombers and their escort; we coidct
see too our own fighters going to for the attack. The fight started
in the Channel, continued on to and over London, then back to
the French coast Mrs. Churchffl was present with us on this
occasion. She was able to listen to our pilots to hear their actual
voices as they wait in to attack. This day was ur greatest, from
f&e point of view of destruction of Germans. We shot down 185
in a single day. We never knocked down that many again. But
we never quite had opportunity, for this day, as predicted, marked
the high point of German daylight raiding. We hadn't w0n the

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 205

Battle of Britain. But we had survived it And as we had weakened
the Germans in the air, we had been getting stronger day by day.

Churchill's tribute to British fliers followed soon after we got
back:

"The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and
indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty,
goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, un-
wearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turn-
ing the tide of the world war by their prowess and by their de-
votion.

"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so
many to so few."

It was August 20, 1940.

Germany's failure to crush us by daring daylight raids prompted
Hitler's nighttime blitz. It was a gambler's last throw to smash
the main cities and towns of this country, preparatory to invasion.
It nearly worked, too.

For some nights before the actual night bombing commenced,
enemy planes had flown over London for reconnaissance purposes
and began to establish a certain value as nuisance raiders. I do
not believe we were prepared, however, for the intensity of the
bombing of London proper. Early in September the bombing
schedule got very heavy. It put a terrible burden upon our popu-
lation and of course just that much more increased the load of the
Prime Minister, As for myself, it multiplied my hours of duty
while reducing my periods of rest I always had to be on hand.
I had absolutely no life of my own from then on, not even a game
of darts if I could have found the time to spare.

Mr. Churchill did not alter Ms mode of living in any way. He
carried on until early morning every night despite the continual
raiding. From a security point of view my presence was as manda-
tory as it would be at any other time for a Prime Minister, but I
also had to have ready all Ms gear helmet and the more or less
complex but neatly boxed respirator apparatus in case of
emergency. He hated all this fuss but it was a Scotland Yard order
as well as a government order. I caught him making faces at these

206 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

instruments of mercy and survival one time, when he pretended to
be familiarizing himself with their values.

I announced to the authorities that in my opinion Number Ten
was a deathtrap. If it were to take a direct hit, all within would
likely perish. On two occasions bombs hit close enough to em-
phasize my estimate. One hit the Treasury, just at the back of Ten
Downing Street The house shook like a struck toy. The walls
split open clear up the east side. Glass flew. Furniture toppled.
Cupboards flew open and dishes flew out. Beds rolled about. High-
boys crashed over on their faces.

One of these hits occurred when tie Prime Minister was dining
in a basement room with Sir Archibald Sinclair, Mr. Oliver Lyt-
telton, and Lord Brabazon. During the dinner another bomb fell
near by. Mr. Churchill left his guests. He went out to the kitchen
and ordered the staff there to go to the shelter. Shortly another
hit occurred between the Treasury and Number Ten. This de-
stroyed the kitchen only fifteen or twenty seconds after he had
cleared it It lifted the kitchen floor and flattened it against the
kitchen wall. It crashed everything in between, including the
stoves and pantry boxes. It smashed an army hut next to us, but
fortunately no one was in the hut.

Because my opinion of Number Ten Downing Street as a bad
security risk for the Prime Minister prevailed, it was thought wise
he should repair each night at the sound of sirens to a safer build-
ing. But I could never get him to move until the guns had started
to fire. Then with the utmost disregard for his personal safety, he'd
walk round part of St. James Park until he reached the spot we
were headed for. It was not a long trek, but after all, one step
forward in the wrong place at the wrong time might have meant
the end of him.

On one occasion we had only been in the building a few sec-
onds when we were startled by the terrific explosion of a bomb
dropping close by. This hit was as close as the one that had
demolished the Prime Minister's kitchen but the bomb was of
greater destructive force. The concussion sent us both reeling
against the wall, myself continuing to whirl until I crashed into
a clothes locker. On going outside it was seen that a bomb a
thousand-pounder had been dropped on the exact spot over

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 207

which we had passed as we turned to make entrance to the build-
ing.

This building was then being used both as an office and sleep-
ing quarters by the Prime Minister,

Persistent attempts were made after this to get Winston to do
his night work in the shelter. He eventually accepted the offer of
the railway authorities to use their offices, more than one hundred
feet below the surface in the Down Street Tube Station.

There was a raid every night. Many nights there were two raids.
Sometimes the attacks would be so sustained or would come with
such rapid succession that we would withstand a whole night of
attack without letup. Fires burned everywhere. The sound of
screaming splitting a sudden, strange silence was a sound that
never left me after those nights; of children burning; the piteous
crying of the trapped and choking; the loud, inspiriting cry of the
rescuers as they hurried to haul away and clear away. And there
was much quiet death everywhere and citizens blown or burned
into dust as if they had never been. Fourteen thousand civilian
residents of the city of London died that fall in the German raids,
most of them crushed or burned to death.

The plan to break us was a well-worked-out plan. Although
the people of London stood up to it magnificently, there was
always the possibility that, with the day bombings following the
night raids, the increasing difficulties in obtaining food and pure
drinking water, the nearly unbearable discomfort of broken sleep,
English morale might crack. Anybody would crack sooner or
later under what we were compelled to take.

But there were enough good things happening and enough
gratifying retaliations going on to help us through the worst of it.
The Royal Air Force began making raids on all the continental
ports we could reach and the knowledge that the most painful dis-
tresses were being rained down upon the heads of the Germans in
Antwerp, Ostend, Calais, and Dunkirk gave the average worker
in London a fine lift. We kept burning quantities of expensive
equipment which Hitler had planned using against us. We ruined
many of the German High Command's plans and points of em-
barkation. There were unmistakable signs that the cross-Channel

208 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

invasion was just about ready to be launched when our Air Force
began to strike the congested center of Its apparatus.

This news was put on the wireless of course. And the British
had the priceless advantage of knowing that what they were lis-
tening to was the truth. They had stood up under some shattering
truths of the conditions against them. Now, this was better. We
could somewhat turn around.

The fall weather began to favor us, as we knew it would, and as
the Germans had not sufficiently gauged. Another lift came from
the visible presence on corner after comer all about the London
area of large numbers of guns. They were of course constantly
manned, and always at first warning, their muzzles were cranked
to the enemy. Once the Germans appeared, a terrific barrage was
put up against the raiders. The din was appalling, but there is
nothing Churchill loves like a din. This had a heartening effect
upon the whole people.

We had yet to go through the worst but I think now we knew
this and somehow felt we could survive it. The United States was
paying attention to what was going on and though her help seemed
far away, it was assurance of strength. The Stimson-Layton Agree-
ment was of great physical assistance to the technical directors of
our war effort, the agreement providing for standardization of
military weapons and equipment of all kinds, as well as a general
policy of pooling our secrets with those of the American military
powers and exchanging proven working formulas for arms pro-
duction.

Wherever they saw him, people cheered the Prime Minister
spontaneously. On leaving London by train one morning from
Holborn Viaduct Station, people rushed to his side. "Thank God
for the guns!" "Give 'em hell!" We had been hit. Now we were
hitting back.

I have mentioned Mr. Churchill's disregard for danger. In walk-
ing through the streets of London, when raids were at their very
height, it was surely bad. I am very hard to frighten and was this
way before my training at Scotland Yard made it altogether illegal,
tot Winston skipped me about into some of the awfulest night-
mares that man's ingenuity for noise and destruction could fashion.
One evening in October I received an order from the Old Man

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 209

to go visit gun sites in and around London. For journeys such
as this an armored car had been put at Ms disposal. He hate^ this
car and the cumbersomeness of it. But he was requested to use it.

On this particular night we started off toward Hammersmith.
Bombs began to come down. Shrapnel fell. Fragments peppered
our car. One of them smashed in our bonnet. On reaching the
bridge at Hammersmith flares could be seen coining down ahead
of us. Flares disturb me for bombs follow flares. A string of them
floated down into the road in front of us. "Carry on," said
Churchill as the driver half turned. The driver didn't want his own
head blown off either. Somehow I knew then that we were going
to encounter serious trouble. The bombs that we expected after
the flares came down in one of the most generous showers I can
recall, an almost profligate display. They knocked out the Barnes
Railway Station. In a moment we passed this station, burning
hard. We got on to Richmond Park, which was to be our first call.
A number of staff officers with their cars awaited us there. The
Germans appeared in greater numbers in the sky. While we
watched, one of the Germans was hit by one of the guns before
us. We watched it break up, a wing snapping clear of the fuselage,
and saw it streak to earth.

Watching the city burn that night put the images in Winston's
mind which England heard only a few days later in these phrases,
when he took personal notice of Hitler:

"This wicked man, the repository and embodiment of many
forms of soul-destroying hatred; this monstrous product of former
wrongs and shame, has now resolved to try and break our famous
island race by a process of indiscriminate slaughter and destruc-
tion.

''What he has done is to kindle a fire in British hearts, here and
all over the world, which will glow long after all traces of the
conflagration he has caused in London have been removed."

It was September 11.

Churchill was fascinated at the sight of the gun crews in action.
On leaving, seeing that the other officials who were to accompany
him were traveling in ordinary cars, he refused to get back in his
armored car. "I will take the same chance as the rest." Then he
put on his stubborn look. But he had tempted Providence.

210 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

Our next gun site was Caterham. A bomb fell in a field we were
passing. It lifted all four wheels of the car from the road surface
and we ran on two wheels for many yards before rocking back.
No one seemed bothered. Winston said, 'That was a near one,
Thompson. It must have been my beef that kept the car down."
We got to the Number Ten Annex uneventfully. The Prime Min-
ister was standing watching the explosion of shells and bombs,
while he and Sir John Anderson discussed how to improve the
technical use of searchlights. There are double doors here at the
Annex entrance. One of them was closed. Mr. Churchill was
standing in front of Sir John in the open part when I heard
something coming through the air toward us that sounded like
Lucifer's chariots. In such circumstances I disregard protocol. One
does not ask if one may have this dance, as it were. It was a huge
bomb and its premonitory whistling was truly frightening. It
seemed to be coming dead on us. And of course you cannot see.

Mr. Churchill was also interested in this auditory phenomenon
and at that moment it struck the railings opposite. At the same
moment I grabbed Churchill with all my strength and swung him
round behind the door. He was absolutely furious. His fury did
not rise above the blast that struck us then. It knocked us every
which way in the lobby. "Don't do that!" he screamed at me. I
think he would have hit out at me with his cane but it was for-
tunately well lost in the commotion. Then he swore, shook and
stamped about and poked his jaw right into my face; a whole gush
of ugly sounds accompanied the reverberations of the explosion in
front. I have quite a bit of jaw myself and I poked it right back
into his face. Besides, my colleague was bleeding with shrapnel and
in much pain. "See there!" I shouted back at the Prime Minister,
as if it was his stubborn stupidity that had hurt one of his own
security officers.

Winston hates to be grabbed suddenly but there are times when
it had to be done, and I never for a minute hesitated to grab him
and send him spinning behind some protecting wall. Or to pin
him against a wall and hold him there with my own arms. He
could curse like the devil. And he would glare at me long after-
ward.

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 211

But I refused to let this worry me. It was my duty to keep death
away from this man. When death was near, I had to forget that
he was famous and dignified. I had to remember that death had
no rules. So I had none. I couldn't. Mostly he hated to lose Ms hat.
And when my occasionally roughing Mm also knocked his hat
away, what he would say while searching for it was a sin against
the language.

He had another form of daring which I considered reckless and
foolhardy. This had to do with his actions when on top of high
buildings at the height of the blitz. He often rushed to them on
hearing the sirens. Sometimes he'd run about first, hunting for
his fieldglasses. Then he would stand and watch the effects of the
bombing and gunfire. He'd count the fires. And he'd time explo-
sions by their flashes, then count the interval to judge their dis-
tance five seconds per mile. No persuasion of any kind would
stop him. Mrs. Churchill had tried her best. Finally she gave up
any idea of altering him.

He had given instructions to be notified immediately when an
air raid was pending. With Ms thick siren suit, Air Force over-
coat and cap, Ms gas mask and with his steel helmet on his head,
he'd go to the roof and there stand out in the open, smoking a
cigar and watching. This was the ancient Marlborough burning
within. Whenever he was the least bit polite to me, I knew he was
feeling most wretchedly guilty. It might be thus:

"I'm sorry to take you into danger, Thompson. I would not do
it, only I know how much you like it." (The Americans had a
word for it, as I found out next year: "The hell you say.")

I would answer, with malicious politeness, equally insincere: "I
am not so sure about that, sir. I am mostly concerned with your
safety."

Then sensing how provoked I was and how bad he was and
knowing what a sham the whole show was, he would give me his
weak defense: "When my time is due, it will come."

One night during a heavy bombing Mrs. Churchill said, "In-
spector, I have asked Mr. Churchill to come downstairs to bed in
the shelter. He has promised to come down will you see that he
does?" I replied, "I will do my best, madame," knowing full well

212 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

how difficult this would be. To my surprise, about 2:30 A.M.
Winston came along the corridor and announced he was going
downstairs to bed. I went to my own room and stayed alert, for
I had noticed a mischievous grin on his face. Shortly after, my bell
rang. I went to his room. He was standing beside his bed in his
dressing gown. Smiling, he said, "Pick up my clothes, Thompson,
I have kept my promise. I have been down here to bed; now I am
going upstairs to sleep."

I always had to be available to take him to the top floor in the
lift When it reached the top of its shaft, he would step out and
start up the winding staircase that went to the roof vents. He
would not get there without much exertion. He was a poor climber.
And in his middle and later years, I found he winded easily. How
could it be otherwise, considering his pressures and Ms confine-
ments?

To the end he ignored the possibility of being hit. Falling shrap-
nel did not even distract him, though pieces often fell large enough
and with sufficient velocity to penetrate the skull or rip off a hand
completely.

Did his going to the roofs ever stop? Yes, it finally did. But this
did not come about because of fear or from his having had his
fill. His excursions ended with the coming of the flying bomb.
And he would have still made these ascents except for one thing:
no sufficient warning of their approach could be given him. The
flying bomb was a swift and stealthy thing. The flying bomb was
the first thing ever to enter our life from Germany that I was
thankful to see. Keeping Winston Churchill downstairs brought
order back into my life.

Churchill's daily routine during the early bombings would be
to go to Down Street Underground after the blitz commenced, to
dine and hold meetings of the Chiefs of Staff. He went to bed, as
he had in previous years, usually between two and three in the
morning. Often he would return to Downing Street while the raid
was still on* and before it was quite daylight As a usual tiling he
would remain at Ten Downing Street during the day even when
raids occurred.

Officials around the Prime Minister were extremely relieved

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 213

when lie used the Down Street Station, but from various re-
marks which he passed from time to time it was obvious that he
did not feel happy at being underground. Presently he decided to
use the Number Ten Downing Street Annex, which had meanwhile
been strengthened. At the Annex powerful rooms had been con-
structed deep underground. These were for himself, his Ministers
and Chiefs of Staff. Later a suite was provided on the floor above
for his wife and family. Numerous raids took place after the
Prime Minister took over the occupation of the rooms above the
security area but only on one occasion could he be persuaded
to use the downstairs rooms. My most important duty was to ob-
tain for him the latest information of the approach of hostile air-
craft, so that he could go to the roof to watch. On my own au-
thority I later had a sandbag shelter put there for him.

Winston was alone much on the roof (except for security offi-
cers such as myself) but I would like to point out that during the
whole period of the day and night raids on London, he and his
Ministers and the Chiefs of Staff went about at all hours in the
London area, during its very worst periods and they did so right
up to the dawn hours night after night. It was not bravado. There
is very little in us, none in Churchill. But there was a reason for
all this: there was a vast amount of work to be done and one
walked through the streets no matter what was happening in them
because one had to get from one place to another at a certain time.
It had to be done*

To be assigned to Churchill is a strain. He will move at a mo-
ment's notice. He will move wititiout notice. He is an animal. In
war he is particularly feral. Tensions increase around him. And
they increase within the men assigned to protect him. Often these
tensions are present without the fact being known to the man so
plagued. I was under terrible tension. I made a quick move once
and shot myself painfully through both legs. It happened like this:

We had instructions that Churchill would be leaving that night
for Chequers. One hour. Time enough for a bite of supper.
I hurried around to the room I occasionally used, a small room
having a direct telephone connection to Number Ten. I was laying
out some fresh cartridges. The telephone rang quickly, two rings.
This always meant instant action. In a hurry to reach it, I leaned

214 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

over a settee. A frayed ribband in the upholstery caught my auto-
matic and pulled it forth from its holster, as I stood in crouching
position, my hand outstretched for the telephone. I stood up. The
weapon fell inside my trousers. I followed it down with my hand,
tenderly. Knowing that the safety catch was on, I let it fall a few
inches. Unfortunately it dropped on the hammer, the safety catch
being released by a thread inside my trouser leg, and the auto-
matic went off.

The bullet hit the calf of my left leg, and there slightly diverted
entered my right thigh. It went through flesh and muscle until it
plowed up to the top of the thigh and hit the bone. My right leg
collapsed. I began to bleed severely but though deeply penetrated,
I was not much injured. While I had the telephone in my hand, I
asked for aid.

Presently it came. Scotland Yard had an ambulance for me in
seven minutes. My two wounds were dressed as I lay there in the
small room. I remember worrying over what Churchill would say.
"Do you think he'll let me handle his armory after this?" I asked
the young surgeon who was probing me.

I had been handling and firing guns of every kind every day for
more than twenty years. This was my first and only accident. Pain
set in, but it was little to my anxiety over what I would hear.

News traveled fast. The Germans used the story to the full, set-
ting forth that: we were behind in the war; Churchill was unpop-
ular; everyone was sick to death of war; there were demonstrations
for peace all over the country. The story got through censorship,
we knew not how. But the Nazi press stated that public senti-
ment against Churchill had reached such a point that an assassina-
tion attempt by his own people had only been thwarted at the last
minute by my having interposed my body. They faked photo-
graphs of Churchill lying down in a crowd, an ambulance behind;
a man being toted off on a stretcher; guns, police, women wailing,
tear gas, etc. These press pictures are the easiest thing in the
world to fake and look very real.

In time I mended. Then I presented myself to the Prime Min-
ister. I asked him directly: "Do you feel, sir, that I can still handle
your guns with safety?" He greeted me warmly, then asked for the
details. At the end of the recital, he said: "I have no doubts about

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 215

you whatever, Thompson. You are a most careful person. Carry
on as before."

During these months and as soon as I could take the full load
again, I accompanied Mr. Churchill on visits to more than sixty
different towns and aerodromes which had been hit by the enemy.
At Coventry Churchill's control was nearly shattered. He was
unable to speak while examining the havoc here. He walked, silent,
between the bare wails of the cathedral, shaking his head, looking
about at the blind windows listening to the wind in the frames.
There are always sad relics in a smashed cathedral. He picked up
one and brought it with him.

In succession we saw Liverpool, Sheffield, Portsmouth, South-
ampton, Plymouth and Devonport all flattened at the core. In
England one home in every five was either destroyed or damaged
too severely to be habitable.

I believe it was Hitler's plan to crush our people when he
could not crush our war machine or slaughter our armies. This
was another error. In all parts of England, wherever bombs fell,
the organization was such that relief in aE forms followed imme-
diately after the "All Clear." At the time of Coventry's worst raid,
for example, the Prime Minister was at a certain country house
from which a number of mobile canteens were dispatched with
necessities on the road to Coventry, a hundred miles distant. These
canteens were in motion, on their way to Coventry, while Coventry
herself was in process of being blitzed.

There was another fine service. It was known as the American
Food Flying Squads. These were very much to the fore following
heavy raids, yeoman service being done by all those attached to
the vans.

Bristol was another place we visited. This poor place was really
razed. Yet from the ash and the standing chimneys there rose a
morale and a spirit stronger and surer than in those places that
had been passed over by the Luftwaffe. We heard everywhere:
"We can take it! But give it to 'em back!" We got there in the
early hours of the morning. It was but an hour after an overnight
raid. Mr. Churchill went to a hotel. After asking about the extent
of the damage, he asked for the impossible, a bath. He received
an immediate "Yes, sir" from the manager. It did not sound con-

216 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

vincing to me. This hotel had escaped what the others had taken
the night before but it had not recovered from half a dozen hits
in previous months. It had a sense of lean to it, as if it needed
shoring up in order to stay in business. Of course there was no
hot water.

But somehow, somewhere, in but a few minutes, an amused
procession of guests, clerks, cooks, maids, soldiers, and walking
wounded materialized out of some mystery in the back part of the
building, and went up the stairs with hot water in all types of
containers, including a garden sprinkler, and filled the tub in the
Prime Minister's room.

After his bath there was breakfast Then we made a tour of
the previous night's disasters. They were indeed terrible. On ar-
riving at a badly damaged block of buildings, an elderly woman,
covered from head to foot in dust, came toward Mr. and Mrs.
Churchill. They were told that she had just been dug out of a
bombed house. They wanted to meet her, for she had said one of
the mightiest lines ever uttered under fire, just before the ceiling
fell in on her little life. She had set aside her broom, shaken her
fist at the invisible Germans somewhere above in the black sky,
and shouted: "How I hates that Hitler! He's such a fidget!"

Mr. and Mrs. Churchill shook hands with her. Although she
was still shaken by the experience of being trapped, she spoke up,
apologizing for her dirty hands. And she seemed to be in a hurry.
With nowhere to go this was unusual, until she said directly: "I
am sorry I can't talk to you any longer. I must go and clean up
my house." And off she went. We were all quite suddenly in the
presence of greatness. And I think we all knew it.

During this visit, Mr. Churchill, as Chancellor of the University
of Bristol, conferred upon Mr. John G. Winant, United States
Ambassador to Great Britain, Mr. R. G. Menzies, then Prime
Minister of Australia, and Dr. J. B. Conant, President of Harvard,
the honorary degree of Doctor of Law.

Winant was a favorite with Winston. They talked for hours at
a time. Winston was always inquiring where the man was, or mak-
ing special efforts to attend something the American was also at-
tending. It was a different sort of friendship from the one Churchill
had with Baruch. He loved Baruch in a good deal the same way

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 217

lie loved General Smuts. He loved their wisdom and sought their
advice. In Winant there was poetry, philosophical profundity, vast
pity. His self-destruction, not much later, was something Winston
could not understand. He never got over it. Winant had the most
beautiful face I ever saw in a man. Great sad eyes too. He had the
Lincoln look.

We came back to London. We were very tired. Hitler realized
his efforts to break us had aborted. It was too late to try a cross-
Channel invasion. That would have to wait till spring^ As the
losses which we could inflict on Ms night raiders increased, his
mass night bombing diminished. There were times when it ap-
peared as if Hitler and the Luftwaffe were pounding away at the
same town night after night. Perhaps he succeeded in completely
destroying some towns in this way. Then he turned to other tar-
gets. Towns just hit could recover.

What Hitler did achieve, however, in a year of air raids was
the killing of over forty-four thousand civilians, and the injuring
of fifty-two thousand. Coming back after Bristol we saw that the
Chamber of the House of Commons was destroyed. Churchill had
spoken there before our last tour of visits, receiving a vote of
confidence, with a majority of four hundred and forty-four.

We were still very much alone in this war. It showed in the in-
creasing irritability of the Prime Minister. One could see it in many
ways, large and small. He would turn on any handy person and let
off steam. Because I was always handy, I got a good many of these
scaldings. Nothing I seemed to do appeared correct in his eyes.
I bored Mm. The necessity of my job bored him. My everlasting
ubiquity must have bored him to death. It even bored me. I asked
Scotland Yard if a temporary shift might be advisable. At times
I felt thoroughly disheartened with the work. I felt I was falling
down. I kept wishing somebody would attack him so I could shoot
the attacker.

On one occasion General Sir Hastings Ismay, secretary to
the War Cabinet, was present during one of these outbursts. I
asked Mm if he could explain why I had been told off so harshly.
General Sir Hastings came forward from Ms customary remote-
Bess and smiled with a sudden flash of intimate understanding: "I

218 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

get It just the same, Thompson. If it lightens the load, it is worth
it."

I realized things were all right again when I listened to Church-
ill, shortly after this, make a public reply to a speech by Presi-
dent Roosevelt. "Put your confidence hi us," said our Prime
Minister to the President of the United States and to the world
at large. "Give us your faith and your blessing, and under
Providence all will be well. We shall not fail or falter. We shall
not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of battle nor the
long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down.
Give us the tools and we will finish the job."

The war took a new turn. The struggle in the air subsided.
Under the sea it intensified. On November 5 the Prime Minister
declared the German U-boat to be our greatest enemy; that its
destructive power had overtaken the destructive power of the
bombing plane. Our own Navy was active everywhere. Weeks ear-
lier the Ajax, of Graf Spee fame, sunk three Italian destroyers.
We followed this quickly with the Battle of Taranto. Here we
blew up two Italian battleships, and sank six more units by air-
craft attack from the fleet air arm.

General de Gaulle, in a bid to liberate the port of Dakar in
French West Africa, approached the port with a small fleet, think-
ing he would be unopposed by the Vichy government represent-
atives. He was very mistaken. Nearing the port in a small boat,
swung off from his warship, he was fired upon by the French
garrison before reaching the landing stage. His attempts to parley
with the officials ashore also failed. De Gaulle's arrangements for
taking Dakar had gone wrong. From that time until the latter part
of 1942 Dakar resisted all efforts to capture it. Mr. Churchill
refused to deal with de Gaulle's attempt. He never made a full
statement, saying it was entirely a French affair.

Bad things were happening to our land forces. General Wavell
had opened a strong attack in Libya and had pressed back the
Axis forces to Benghazi. But our troops were desperately needed
in Greece. Wavell's work was lost. He had to pull his forces out
and retire them almost to their old positions.

President Roosevelt was re-elected for the third time and an-
nounced a Lend-Lease plan. It was implemented in record time

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 219

by the Congress and we began almost immediately to receive Its
benefits. We had only recently received the fifty "overage" de-
stroyers from the United States, and these were already in service,
combating the submarine menace. For the destroyers the United
States received a ninety-nine-year lease of naval and air bases
from Newfoundland clear down to British Guiana and including
Bermuda, Trinidad and Jamaica. But the announcement of Lend-
Lease was the most gratifying statement we had received so far
from the Americans. "You share our purpose, you will share our
dangers, you will share our anxieties, you shall share our secrets,
and the day will come when the British Empire and the United
States will share together the solemn but splendid duties which are
the crown of victory."

It came just in time. We could not use the treaty ports on Ire-
land's western coast. Mr. de Valera declared that Eke would not
hand over the ports to Britain because such action would involve
her in war. Of course we could not do so without violating Irish
neutrality. There was much public pressure on the Prime Minister
that we just move in and seize the ports. We were losing lives aU
up and down the west coast of Ireland by U-boat sinkings that we
could prevent if we had the ports. When Churchill was challenged
directly with the question: "For God's sake, why don't you go in
and take them?" he remarked instantly and with equal force: "No!
That is the very thing we are fighting against! I will not do it!"

By this time WavelFs troops had arrived in Greece from Libya.
Within a month, however, the Axis, smashing through Yugo-
slavia, forced our withdrawal, forty-eight thousand of the original
sixty thousand getting away safely. They went to Crete. Here they
were again overwhelmed by the Axis and once more forced to pull
out. It was humiliating, discouraging and desperate.

Churchill was extraordinarily interested in a rocket apparatus.
He made numerous trips to Shoeburyness. There Ms own son-in-
law, Duncan Sandys, M.P., a completely excellent and enchanting
fellow, very brilliant of mind and especially so with the mechanical
rig he was assembling there, was hard at work with a number of
troops and rocket experts, perfecting this invention for antiaircraft
work. They completed it in a few months from this time, but it
came at a frightful cost to the Churchill family. As one visit f ol-

220 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

lowed another, we gradually saw the progress that was being
made on the whole complex assembly. One of the last places
visited was a town in Wales. For the purpose of this journey I
rose early in the morning to go meet the Prime Minister by rail-
road coach. Meanwhile Major Sandys, who had been in London,
preceded us by car. He became involved in a most serious and
painful motor accident which then and there ended his military
career. This was a terrible blow to Winston, to Duncan's young
wife and to all of us who knew the man. His injuries were indeed
quite awful and he is, while recovered somewhat, not able today
to walk without canes. However, he is as plucky as the rest and
this has not held him back from Ms political career. But it was
a deep tragedy and a deeper emotional setback to those about
him, the group beginning to achieve secret success with the rocket.

The Prime Minister was delighted by the return to his capital
of Emperor Haile Selassie of Abyssinia. Hitler never failed to de-
light Churchill too. He had translations of the speeches played on
the gramophone for himself, and never allowed the technician to
cut out any of the cheers and screams. He loved to listen to the
German hordes dismembering him (Churchill) and would lean
forward in his seat, rich in the images that fled past. Hitler was
now threatening, in his frequent spiels in the Reichstag, to drop
one hundred bombs for each British bomb dropped on the Reich,
until Britain got rid of Churchill. The Prime Minister liked to play
back the parts where Hitler mentioned Mm by name. There were
other Cabinet Members who did not think this entirely dignified.
Winston did not consider it so either, no more so than his madly
meditative marching about the Great Hall at Chequers with, the
BBC wireless blaring. But it released something. And that was
good.

We lost the Hood. It had been chasing the Bismarck and the
cruiser Prinz Eugen all over the Atlantic. The Hood took a salvo
that detonated her magazines and she blew up in a million direc-
tions. We lost nearly her whole complement Churchill went
around in a daze. From the instant we lost the Hood it became
a serious game of Mde and seek the Bismarck trying in every
conceivable way to avoid contact with our forces. The Germans
of course wanted to be able to enjoy their immense victory and

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 221

could not very well do so unless the victorious Bismarck returned
safely, for supplies and refueling. It was presumed she would try
to get to Brest. The British Navy never hung on so hard, even
though we couldn't find the mighty German, Aircraft were taken
from other assignments to locate her. Ships began closing in from
all directions. Then we suddenly did see her; through a crack
in the clouds she was sighted by a slow-flying plane and her
position fixed, her identity established. We hit her with a torpedo
and damaged her steering gear. She traveled in circles, ever going
slower. Then we moved in and sank the unsinkable. Two days
after her own death the Hood was somewhat avenged when we
sent the Bismarck to the bottom.

But it was a cheerless winter nonetheless. "Not only great
dangers, but many more misfortunes, many shortcomings, many
mistakes, many disappointments will surely be our lot. Death and
sorrow will be the companions of our journey; hardship our gar-
ment; constancy and valor our only shield."

The months were rushing by. A year had gone by since France
had been defeated. We still remained alone. Winston always
seemed to feel the need of reports and photographs on all phases
of the war. He'd peer at photos of German submarine pens
and improvise methods to slide bombs into *them, as he sat there
watching and studying, when told the concrete roofing was too
tough for any bomb yet built. He did not create the "skip" bomb
that was used to break up this construction at Saint-Nazaire but
he instantly saw that it would work.

There were formidable gatherings of invasion barges below us.
Thousands of them. They looked ominous, even though empty.
For one could see them glistening with fire and glinting with blade,
carrying their lethal congeries of cunning Germans, slipping over
the water to stab us in the dark. ChurcHU ordered a concentrated
attack on all those spots where these clusters of barges were
known to be under camouflage.

This attack coincided with a record output of heavy bombers
by English factories.

Hitler's air blitz had f ailed* It had burned us and torn us and
sorrowfully disfigured us, but it hadn't broken our bon^s and we
ccrald still therefore fight.

222 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

Hitler's preparations for invasion seemed also to be slowing
down and sloughing off. He had a huge war machine but he
seemed uncertain how to use it. Churchill knew that Hitler did
not long stand still in such dilemmas; that he would presently
take action and probably not the classic or professional one. Any
amateur in war can look intuitive if his physical power is initially
vast, Ms authority absolute, and his method unexpected.

Information from flights over the Channel and up and down the
coasts of Belgium and France indicated to Churchill (though he
did not for a long time say so to the English people) that Hitler's
instinct, somewhat instructed no doubt by the punishment his
barges had taken, was rapidly suggesting he abandon any idea of
invading Britain. It would not seem possible that any man even
a crazy one would think of giving up the fight for the Island and
taking on Russia. Yet Churchill not only suddenly suspected Hit-
ler might do this, he suddenly saw that it was exactly what Hitler
was going to do next. Churchill apprehended this before there
was any movement at all toward concentration of German troops
on the Eastern Front.

Churchill warned Stalin Hitler planned to take him on. Nobody
in the world believed it. Yet all of a sudden, there were the Ger-
mans, athwart the Russian border, pouring over it without warn-
ing or declaration of war and in direct defiance of military plausi-
bility.

We were in the imposing gloom of Chequers. It was a Sunday,
a day greatly favored by the Germans for their acts of treachery.
Though the aspect of Chequers has a baronial chill to it that
deadens the appetite, the day itself was beautiful in the extreme.
Churchill got word there that the Germans had crossed over into
Joe Stalin's back yard and the implications of this were indeed
most joyous to us all.

It was difficult for Americans to understand the exquisite re-
lief, the sudden release from pressure. The Canadians could un-
derstand it better through their kinship to us and the bond of the
Commonwealth. But the knowledge that we could have a few
moments to repair our own war machine, with the striking power
of Hitler concentrated upon great stretches of ground in an area

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 223

so many miles away, was surely something to set the heart hum-
ming and lift the mind.

That very day, from Chequers, Winston Churchill broadcast to
all the world promises of aid to Russia, aligned the British Com-
monwealth with Russia as Allies, and said with brief eloquence
and majestic summary: "We are no longer alone."

Also the United States had stepped in by sending American
troops to Iceland to join British troops already there. Iceland in
German hands would have constituted a terrible menace. I don't
know if Americans, reading this today, remember that their great
country had American troops joining up with British troops in Ice-
land, to strengthen the Atlantic lifeline, a full six months before
Pearl Harbor, but that is the historical fact. Although the United
States was not at war with anyone, it was obvious President
Roosevelt was determined that supplies to our own country, and
now to Russia, were going to get through. And they did.

Concurrently, the forces of liberation were at work in France.
Unspeakable stories of torture kept coming through to us, de-
scribing what the Nazis were doing to those they caught. Germany
will never be forgiven for this. But even so and in tribute to the
spirit of the French their movement gained momentum day by
day. We heard the word Victoire was chalked up everywhere,
from which the "V" sign ultimately emerged and became uni-
versally recognized.

Churchill went about happily flashing the V at the whole world.
In a broadcast to all occupied countries he described it in these
words: "The V sign is a symbol of the unconquerable will of the
occupied territories, and a portent of the fate awaiting the Nazi
tyranny. So long as the people of Europe continue to refuse all
collaboration with the invader, it is sure that his cause will perish,
and that Europe will be liberated."

People everywhere flashed the same right back at him when-
ever he held up his hand and spread his fingers.

We had been through some awful months. We all knew we still
had many more and many more years of awful months too
with death at the end perhaps. But anything that made things look
as if the struggle might finally begin to even out and turn into a
fair exchange made the present supportable.

224 ASSIGNMENT; CHURCHILL

Churchill's "We are no longer alone' 5 captured this mood and it
swept over England. We felt strong again and ready for another
round.

Then a subtle but electric thing happened. It was on the sec-
ond of August. A "secret journey." Frankly, I always loved these
things. Winston Churchill probably had never shown so much
exuberance and excitement since Harrow. He bumped over the
grass of his country place like a balloon dragged by a hurrying
child. He was all smfles and mystic gestures, quick lurches of the
head, whispers. His hands were never still. Something big. No
doubt of it.

It was all doubly delightful to me, for not only had I had a few
days' leave, my first in fourteen months, but I was permitted to
know it was to be a sea voyage. This meant I could get still a bit
more rest, for Winston is happiest aboard ship. If this could also,
by some happy chance or wise precaution, be a huge battleship
besides, I knew it would be an experience to remember the rest of
my life.

I cannot tell you how, but I had ascertained we were to visit
President Roosevelt at sea.

Churchill rushed about Chequers, being in favor of everything
and approving of everyone. Very unusual for him. On the day we
were due to leave, his keenness to be off grew more and more
intense actually boyish as the hour came. He very well knew
the hour, yet he kept asking me it. He seemed to like to hear me
say it. At one o'clock, for the third time, he once more asked
me if everything was ready and exactly when we were to depart.

"About a quarter of an hour," I answered him, amused at Ms
suspense. I felt some myself, of course, but I am a cop and this is
not an authorized part of our equipment.

Today, I do truly believe, if I had studied my wrist watch for
a second or two and then said with quiet positiveness: "We leave
in exactly thirteen minutes and eleven seconds" he would have
stood it out. (And we were only going to the station to catch a
train!) But he couldn*! stead it At 1 :05 he jumped into the wait-
ing cai and instructed the driver to take us to the station at once.
He was grinning at all and flasiraig M& most bewitdHBg smile oa
even unknown persons.

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 225

Of course he had to wait, as would any other schoolboy far
ahead of his schedule when embarking on his first holiday in the
country. There was nothing to do but stand around. Finally the
train came. It already had quite a supply of some of the most
important Englishmen alive. And a lot of champagne too.

Everyone was in a fine mood. Professor Frederick Lindemann,
now Lord Cherwell and considered by Churchill in terms of sheer
intellectual accomplishment to be the "brightest" Englishman alive
today, was happy as a vacationist as soon as the Prime Minister
was safely aboard and we were in motion.

Sir John Dill, C.I.G.S., was another member of the party. So
were Sir Dudley Pound and Sir Alexander Cadogan. Many of my
own colleagues from Scotland Yard were along too.

The mood of the group grew happier at dinner before we ar-
rived at our point of embarkation. Churchill not only had Ms
regular pint of champagne, he had a bit more tonight.

He turned to Lord Cherwell, a brilliant mathematician, and
asked him to work out in his head how much champagne he had
drunk, at the rate of a pint a day, in twenty-four years. He seemed
very satisfied with the answer. But when he turned to the pro-
fessor again and asked him how many raikoad coaches it would
require to stow and carry all that champagne and was told that
one end of one coach would be more than ample, he was very put
out and disappointed, feeling himself a very uninteresting imbiber
at best. He wanted it to require several trainloads at the least.
Then Sir John Dili asked Mr. Churchill how many yards of cigars
he*d smoked. The Prime Minister wouldn't get into it, and it also
came out that the definitions of smoking would have to be gone
into with considerable care, many seeming to know that Winston,
while seldom without a cigar in public, was also known to carry
it about unlit for long periods of time, so that a single cigar might
last half the afternoon, most of the time more ornamental than
functional. You can see how significant the dinner conversation
had become.

We arrived in the far north of the Island in a cool heavy rain,
but nothing would dampen the spirits of the Prime Minister or the
pervasive sense of mission that went with this group.

226 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

By this time I knew by sight many ships in the Royal Navy, and
there before us was the Prince of Wales.

We went aboard at once. There the Prime Minister was met by
Admiral Tovey. Churchill stepped forward to shake hands with
him. He had not noticed yet that a quiet, sickly looking man had
also stepped up. Then these two shook hands. I'd seen the picture
fifty times but did not at once identify the man.

It was Harry Hopkins. He had just come back from seeing
Stalin.

"Hello, Harry!" said Winston jovially. "How is our friend Joe?"

"Joe is looking very well, Winston, and is sorry he didn't take
your advice."

"Joe has a lot of work to do now," said Winston.

"I guess he knows it now," said Harry.

"He should have taken my advice. Everybody should take my
advice," he added good-naturedly. "At all times." They grinned
at each other, Harry nervously, his shoulders constantly hunched
as if repelling a chill or a shiver. He never looked quite dressed
or sufficiently nourished. And he smoked his head off. Except for
King Zog, I never saw anyone smoke so much or so continuously.

"The Germans have a way of keeping you busy once they
decide to pay you any attention at all," Winston said. They walked
down the deck together. Harry Hopkins was to be with us for
the trip, then to transfer to the President's ship at the time of
rendezvous.

There was a lunch served for the party aboard the King George
V. I accompanied the Prime Minister, then left him to come
back to the Prince of Wales and go over the security problem
which the voyage represented to me. Churchill is a real fidget on
a boat.

I learned that we were to traverse waters that were thick with
German submarines. And I was told that although our exact
route was at that instant not even known to our own captain, it
would be naive to think the Germans, through their Intelligence,
did not know this meeting was taking place. It was hoped they did
not know specifically where. But if it was known to the Germans
that it was a sea journey and not an air journey, the point of con-
tact could be assumed to be one that would favor the President

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 227

of the United States, because of Ms physical impairment, and it
might therefore be nearer to the shores of that continent than ours.

I was rehearsed in what to do in case we were hit by a torpedo.
I ahready knew what to do if, through some unlikely mischance,
an assassin were aboard shiip. I laid out my own stratagems to the
proper ship's security officers to take care of this hazard.

I like ships too and feel quite at home on them. Winston had
brought a quantity of serviceable clothing for the voyage and
several uniforms for such formal appearances as would be re-
quired. I had a horrifying thought. He had not brought his own
valet! I would get that burden! I sought relief from the Royal
Navy and I got some.

Well, I would just have to face up to it. Anticipating his laundry
and valet needs, I poked about the vast ship, seeking help, and
ascertaining the locations of such critical items as tubs, soap,
pressers, and drying space. A policeman's life!

But I had a certain amount of importance, at least by proxy. I
could keep people away from the Prime Minister, and I could tell
the hundreds of inquirers that I had no idea where we were going,
who was to meet us, or what was to be said, then looking wisely
and laconically away as if I actually was carrying the plans in my
trousers. I enjoyed a great deal of prestige and was well served at
mess time. But too often, when in the midst of a cluster of eager
questioners and holding them spellbound, there would be the
warning buzz of the ship's loudspeaker, then the momentous sum-
mons: "Inspector Thompson, lay aft to the laundry to fetch the
Prime Minister's fresh linen!" "Inspector Thompson, lay aft to
the Prime Minister's cabin to porter his laundry," "Inspector
Thompson, the Prime Minister's uniforms are ready!" And off I'd
go, the whole Navy sensing my odd humiliation. And enjoying it.

I did not know the exact spot but had a pleasant time trying to
guess in my mind where we might arrive. I had hoped we might
get very close to America (what a different sort of feeling I was
developing for her from the one I had in 1931!), and perhaps, as
courtesy escort, go back from the rendezvous and drop anchor at
Norfolk, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Portsmouth or Boston. I knew
it would give me at least a momentary lift to stand on the shores
of a nation a strong one and look into the faces of a free peo-

228 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

pie who were not yet in desperate contest and very much able to
fight. I knew this was idle thought, so I put it out of mind.

In and out of the Prime Minister's accommodations many times
a day and being in continuous service to him, I of course heard
enough to realize his inner attitude was not entirely hopeless; that
he had a cogent and well-reasoned list of proposals and direct
propositions to offer the President of the United States, and that
once offered, they would be weE argued.

About 9:00 P.M., the second night out, the captain of the
Prince of Wales announced over the loudspeaker and to the ship's
company that our destination was somewhere near Newfoundland.
All my questioners looked knowingly at me and when close
enough to speak to me they all, without exception, announced that
they'd known from the beginning though their guesses had
ranged from Reykjavik to Jamaica.

It was evident that Winston was putting great faith in the com-
ing conference. But he was unusually guarded in saying anything
specific or revealing any of his most secret thoughts and hopes
even by an inflection of the voice. He was cheerful. He sang a lot.
Thank God it was too rough to paint! He also bathed with gusto
and frequency, making up for the train journey by using half the
Atlantic. In water, fresh or salt, he's like a seal but without the
sleekness. He's more like a whale, I guess.

When we'd been to sea a couple of days Mr. Churchill really
did relax. He even read a book. This is a very unusual thing for
Mm to do. Usually he is writing them. I commented on this. He
said he was deriving a wonderful benefit from the rest and the
fresh air. He admitted that he needed it Reading rested his brain.
It was a light book.

The sea calmed a bit. An escort of destroyers slid in without
fuss. Churchill walked for many hours on the quarterdeck. Every
man on that ship got a great kick out of just seeing him, just
knowing he was on their ship. He represented something cosmic
and imperishable, something monolithic and good. Something
great. Something that would not be seen again. The ship's com-
pany knew this. You would sense greatness in him and about him
even if you were coming upon "him for the first time and knew
nothing of him. It is there in the Churchill face*

ASSIGNMENT; CHURCHILL 229

He liked getting about various parts of the ship. He liked to go
about alone. He was poor with ladders and hopeless with a rope.
He definitely belongs in a modem navy. Men stepped aside to let
him pass. Often they stiffened and saluted. Once permitted, they'd
crowd the poor man to death. There was always laughter coming
out of the groups he created. And strays and trailers followed him
about everywhere, not talking among each other so they'd miss
nothing of what he might say to others. He'd stop and chat with
anybody. He did this constantly on this trip. If an officer called
them smartly to attention, he would normally protest to the officer,
with a simple sweetness: "No, no. Carry on. I want to walk about
without interfering. Allow the men to be at ease. I want to feel I
can have personal contact with them at any time. Nothing could
more increase my enjoyment of the hospitality of the Prince oj
Wales: 9

On Wednesday night, Mr. Churchill was dressing for dinner. I
am not much of a valet but I kept passing him things as I felt it
was time for them to go on. Winston was an immaculately, almost
fanatically, clean person in all his habits. The frequent raMshness
of his appearance and the sprawling abandon, even the shocking
incongruity of some of his getups was partly due to his not car-
ing what he looked like when appearance had no importance at
the moment, partly because he enjoyed certain pieces of raiment
and hung on to them even though they might belong to eras fifty
years apart. He also had certain things made for himself that no
one could ever decipher. But when it was time to dress up, he had
the wardrobe. Anthony Eden wears a homburg with easy con-
viction but somehow as if he expects to be photographed. But
when Winston Churchill wears one, which is not often, it imme-
diately becomes a physical part of his inner mood and being.

I casually mentioned to him, while he dressed, that we had
been on a number of trips together and I tried to make a guess as
to the number of miles,

He thoughtfully looked down at the rug as he shoehorned his
feet into evening slippers. ic Yes, and I hope it will be a few thou-
sand more, Thompson. If we get back from it"

"I'm sure you'll get back from it, sir," I said easily.

*1 suppose we'll get back if we're supposed to get back.** That

230 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

was characteristic of Ms attitude about all dangers and long en-
deavors. They would come to their proper ends in their proper
time. While living, all he could do was the work before him and
derive the satisfaction that went with its accomplishment. I re-
marked that his meeting with President Roosevelt would make
history. At once he replied:

"Yes. And more so, if I get what I want from him."

"I think you will, sir. We all know it cannot be anything but
honorable."

"But a pack of villains has broken loose and got in the gun-
room," he said.

Then he referred to the occasion in France when he asked if I
had been in a photograph of the Supreme War Council, and had
added that never again would this same group be seen together.
Some would perish, some would be deposed, some would change
allegiance, or make a compromise from which there is no return.
Some would stay on to the end. He was thinking of this.

In speaking of President Roosevelt, of whom I had no more
than an English newspaper notion, I gathered that Winston was
rehearsing in detail what he was planning to say, and in what
order. He and Harry Hopkins were together much of the time.
Winston had a world-sense. It was English, and it was personal,
but it was a world-sense nonetheless. He seemed to feel that
he held the continents in his right hand and the custody of all their
inhabitants, and that in his left hand he held the oceans. I began
to feel that Winston viewed President Roosevelt as similar in
makeup: that here were two men of prestige and power, mighty ac-
complishment, elaborate thought, fearless initiative, supported by
the impassioned love of the multitudes. Winston felt it likely that
this, also, was the way the President of the United States felt about
himself.

With Hitler preoccupied with Russia, and still to face the Rus-
sian nervelessness and fanatical love of land, there might be time
to put an end to mankind's most awful dilemma, and the time
might be now. A world without war is indeed a world to dream of.
It seemed almost as if these two men could will it so.

But it was only a dream, wasn't it?

The weather held beautiful for two more days, but Saturday

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 231

dawned dull and wet. The ship shone from stem to stern, how-
ever. I was walking about the deck at six, then dropped down to
Churchill's cabin to find that he also had risen early and had al-
ready had his breakfast. There was an outline of land ahead, then
land itself, then the outlines of ships, some carrying sail.

Just ahead now was the U.S.S. Augusta, with the President of
the United States aboard her.

We steamed up very close, then incredibly drew away again
and put out to sea for an hour and a half. We never got an ex-
planation for this. It infuriated Winston. He banged about the
decks, hunting a target for his wrath. We never talked about the
matter afterward somehow. There must have been a report of an
emergency of some kind, yet a submarine warning hardly seemed
to explain our separating so quickly when we were in hailing dis-
tance. Somewhat later, someone suggested the possibility of an
aerial attack though this was at once scouted by others listening,
one of whom pointed out that no capital ship had ever been de-
stroyed by aerial bombs. The bitter irony of this of course is that
this very ship, the mighty Prince of Wales, was to be the first
capital ship to go down under aerial attack and not much later
at Singapore. Winston never recovered from this news, never un-
derstanding it.

We approached once more and spirits lifted at once. We soon
reached our anchorage in surroundings very similar to Scapa
Flow. Around us were numerous units, big and smaE, from the
United States navy. How hungrily Winston looked over their fire-
power 1 How we needed it!

As we passed, slowly and majestically between these ships,
bands were playing everywhere. It was most beautiful. It was hard
to hold back tears. We sailed clear around the Augusta playing a
number all the Americans love: the Sousa march, "Stars and
Stripes Forever/* We received a salute from her and she right
away struck up "God Save the King." Winston had forgotten our
odd detour out to sea. All was pleasant

We anchored. An American admiral came aboard to pay Ms
respects. A senior officer from the Prince of Wales boarded the
Augusta for the same purpose. A few minutes later the Prime
Minister, looking like a sea lord every inch accompanied by

232 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

Lord Cherwell, Sir Dudley Pound, Sir John Dill, Sir Alexander
Cadogan, Commander Thompson and myself went aboard the
Augusta.

As I reached the head of the gangway, I saw for the first time
in my life a United States Marine. I must say I have never seen so
colorful nor so smartly set up a fighting man anywhere. He was
more than that; he was imposing.

The Augusta had a large canvas awning over the quarterdeck
and as we arrived, the band played "God Save the King" again.
We went to the deck above. The President of the United States
was here. So were officers of the U.S. army, navy, and air force.

President Roosevelt was standing by the rail, supported by Ms
son Elliott, an officer in the U.S. army. It was a most impressive
moment. The President looked strong and healthy. He did not
smile at first. He was a serious man, I found. Character and de-
cision was written into every line of his face. He stood very straight.
He had a cape. It gave him an aloof elegance. It did not appear
incongruous,

Winston Churchill moved forward. Then President Roosevelt
smiled most wumingly. I had never seen such a smile. They shook
hands warmly, informally. They were mighty glad to see each
other. After greeting the President, the Prime Minister presented
the various officers who had accompanied him to the Augusta,
and of course those of the Cabinet and War Council.

At the conclusion of this, Mr. Churchill handed to the President
a letter from His Majesty the King. Here, most regrettably and
contrarily, the sound camera suddenly ceased to function. What
was said then is now lost. I caught only a broken snatch or two.
It could not be reconstructed.

Following this, the Admiral's barge moved away from the
cruiser. Mr. Churchill gave the V sign to numerous members of
the ship's company who were standing at attention all along the
rails.

The same party returned later for lunch, but the President
and the Prime Minister lunched alone in a separate cabin. Just
prior to leaving the Prince of Wales for this luncheon meeting
wife the American President, the Prime Minister had taken a
small piece of red leather that he tad been using as a pkceraark

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 233

for papers he was reading, and on which were engraved the words:
"Ask and it shaE be given. Seek and ye shall find." At that mo-
ment I drew Mr. Churchill's attention to the appropriateness of
the words for the situation into which he was advancing, and sug-
gested he regard them as a good omen for the conference just
ahead. He smiled beatifically at this. "Yes y Thompson, I hope it
is a good omen. For I have much to ask for." Then, as he stepped
out of my sight for Ms private luncheon with the President, he
looked up quickly and caught my eye, showing just a little corner
of the talisman, knowing I would recognize what it was. I grinned
back.

We got back to the Prince of Wales after the two warriors had
lunched together. At three o'clock a welcome surprise was in store
for the crew of our ship and for all her escorting destroyers.
Several small boatloads of small cardboard boxes came alongside.
We could not imagine what they were. The boats were manned
by Marines, all the same height and appearance as the one who
had so caught my attention when boarding the Augusta. They
brought these hundreds and hundreds of boxes on deck. Each
box contained two hundred cigarettes,, two apples, an orange or
other fruit, and half a pound of cheese.

You cannot imagine what a lift this meant. Most of these men
hadn't tasted an orange for two years, hadn't even seen one. This
was a present from the President of the United States to all crews.
And in each box was a printed folder, on the front of which was
inscribed: The Commander-m-Chiei, United States navy, sends
Ms compliments and best wishes, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President
of the United States, August 9th, 1941.

As these were being brought aboard and opened, the Prime
Minister came on the quarterdeck and asked a British seaman and
some of the Marines to show him the contents of the boxes. They
were of course delighted to do this. Right off he caled for a
number of the Americans to gather round him and a picture was
taken of this happy group. The gesture was appreciated aH over
and the picture was the coxy of the Marines* comrades back on
Hie Augusta.

QaadaSk took a short nap be tossed aboui a good bit during
fFaiad may not have slept, though he can usually sleep under any

234 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

circumstances then lie bathed and slowly and carefully dressed.
We did not talk. Sometimes you don't talk around him. It is easy
to tell the times. You don't talk if he doesn't.

We went across the short stretch of water between the two
ships. Winston was not even talking to his own party. Dinner on
the Augusta was at seven. I hung about for five hours. I am used
to not eating. We returned to the Prince of Wales after midnight
and the Prime Minister went to bed. He was still silent. There was
terrible tension all over the ship.

Sunday morning came. It was beautiful. The shore gleamed.
The world seemed happy, the ocean noble, the ships at peace.
President Roosevelt was due any minute aboard the Prince of
Wales. Everyone was excited. At ten-thirty an American destroyer
went alongside the Augusta. The President, with two of his sons
and a large staff, was brought over to us.

On the quarterdeck the Prime Minister, his officials and the
ship's officers awaited the President who came on board shortly
after.

Drawn up at the after end of the quarterdeck were American,
Canadian and British sailors and marines all mingled together,
a neat cluster of color. They were to attend a church parade to be
led by the two greatest men of our time. j *

It was a moving sight. Away off there was music, organ music,
though I did not know its source. Everyone seemed solemn and
quiet but not at all sad or downcast. Then as the procession ad-
vanced and the robed chaplains stood together and opened their
books s the feeling of solemnity relaxed somewhat. I believe we all
felt in the true presence of God here in this harbor, with the known
ordeal of the hard years ahead.

The President came to the end of the deck and he and his sons
took their seats. A meeting of this character had never been held
before. The circumstances in which it came about will remain for-
ever with those who were present and who took part. All about
were ships of war, encircled by the high rocks of the clean coast
of Newfoundland. Far off, planes drummed but remained far off.
The head chaplain read the service, standing before a rostrum
draped with American and British flags. We were all deeply moved.
Three hymns were sung, all of them selected by the Prime Min-

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 235

ister. He knew the sea and knew the hymns the majority of the
sailors would be sure to know. The sound rang richly across these
strange waters. There was never such singing.

When the service broke up, the President remained for a long
time talking at the ship's rail with the Prime Minister. There was a
short tour of the ship later, then lunch, and President Roosevelt
left the Prince of Wales about three o'clock.

Still you could not read a sign in Churchill's face.

As the presidential destroyer moved away from our ship, Roose-
velt waved Ms hat to us across the water. A terrific cheer broke
out. The Prime Minister waved back. Then he suddenly looked
down at his feet where a little black and white kitten was rubbing
itself against his leg. He is a great lover of cats and on this oc-
casion stooped down and picked up the little animal, and it became
part of his departing salute as he waved to the President, to the
evident delight of all the crew.

Were the tensions going down? A shore party was arranged,
an informal one. Churchill changed clothes; he had brought an
easy tourist suit with him. Walking on land, the mere prospect
of it, was most pleasurable to me. About six of us went. Winston's
manner changed as soon as we were on shore.

The man had had over a year of some of the most crushing dis-
appointments and reverses ever sustained by a single individual.
He seemed to put this behind, to let it sink into the deep ocean
we had traversed. We climbed a hill and got to the top of it, cool
and rocky and silent. People spoke and saluted and took pictures
but it was no mob such as on the Continent. Winston kept the
party amused by humorous comments upon the trip, the food, the
contrast of so many different people trying to find a protection
under which they could stand in safety. His heart was growing
lighter. He was seeing some way out

From the top of the hill we could see a small inlet of water on
the other side. Although rain clearly threatened, we continued on
our way. We came upon several small sailing ships which were
turned over upon their sides in the low tide. They seemed to have
been hurled far up on the land by gales, but men were working
about them with patient industry. Suddenly rain crashed down
hard and we got thoroughly drenched in a very few seconds. It

236 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

disturbed Mr. dnirchill not at all He merely cupped Ms hand
over Ms cigar and went on talking and pointing and puffing.

We were as soaked as if we had been lifted up and dipped in
deep water but no one cared in the least It was a warm rain and
a friendly island.

Back on the Prince of Wales, speculation was running high as
to the present status of the meeting and its probable outcome. I
was questioned continuously. When is America going to realize
we can't take this forever? Is America coming in? What are we
going to get out of all this trouble? Do Americans realize how
close this awful war is drawing to themselves? What is their atti-
tude? How much had I heard that I could tell?

There was no end to any of it. If I were seen to be standing
behind the President's chair, because that would be close to where
the Prime Minister might be standing at the time, I would be sup-
posed to know the answer to any riddle put to me and expected
to give, at least, a cautious off-the-record summation. But the
Chiefs of Staff were in almost continuous consultation.

That evening the President and the Prime Minister dined to-
gether. I remained nearby their private supper on the Augusta.
Several American officers told me they had been watching the
Prime Minister's face in hope of being able to see what was going
on in his brain, but because of Ms constantly varying expression
they had been puzzled. I told them that I had been in the same
predicament more than a thousand times. Even when one knew
that the war situation had improved in some detail or other, pleas-
ure was by no means necessarily depicted on the Prime Minister's
face. Often, in such circumstances, his expression had been grim
and not at all satisfied. The relief of good news seemed to give him
license to growl his head off in the belief that the growling, be-
cause the news was good, could not demoralize any of those
around him.

Gus Gerrnerich, who was normally the President's private body-
guard, was not aboard the Augusta, having taken ill before the
departure. But another famous White House regular was on hand,
a fine fellow named Mike Reffly. We became attached to each
other, so far as our duties permitted. He came over to me and of-
fered to introduce me to the President. I was delighted. Fve seen

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 237

all the famous people in the world and by and large you can have
them, for they are too often the great bores of the planet, their
eminence so often resulting from a lifetime attention to their own
affairs and to nothing else but the man Roosevelt was one to
capture the imagination. From the instant I had heard his voice
on the wireless, I had wanted to behold the man in person, to look
at him and listen to him. I must confess I got quite a start when
Mike offered to make this very thing possible right here and now.

Mike is like all the other Americans I ever met in one respect
at least: suggestions are put into action right away. They are
never delayed in committee. We hurried across the deck to the
President 5 s cabin. "Isn't there some sort of warning? I mean, some
ceremony? Some protocol?" I very much didn't want to be guilty
of a breach in punctilio, and didn't at all understand the American
system for such things.

"Hell no!" he said cheerfully, rushing me along with a powerful
shove across the shoulders. "Anybody can meet the President if
I think they're okay." And he seemed glad to be able to do this
for me.

At the very doorway of the presidential suite, I collided with
Winston Churchill, just stepping out after a conversation. I imme-
diately told him the purpose of my coming in and the courtesy
being shown me by the American Secret Service. Churchill beamed
and grabbed us both a one in each hand.

"Oh, no, Thompson! I will perform that introduction myself!
It will be a great pleasure for me."

So he came right back into the presence of Roosevelt, not even
knocking on the door. I stood at Ms desk where he was reading
and writing. He looked up and smiled most amiably. He seemed
relaxed and good-natured, a leaner and sharper edition of Winston
Mmself in some ways, and extended his hand across Ms desk to
me. He had good arms and shoulders and an unexpectedly power-
ful grip. Winston spoke:

"Inspector Thompson has faithfully guarded me for a period
of nearly twenty years. It gives me great pleasure to present him
to you." We then chatted for about ten minutes, the President
offering me one of Ms cigarettes from Ms silver cigarette case.

238 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

Churchill slipped out. Roosevelt asked me to stay. Mike went
on into the suite somewhere.

Roosevelt asked: "How is he standing up under it, Thompson?
How is he really?"

"He has marvelous reserve, sir, and fine working habits, in-
cluding the habit of periodic rest."

"Good. Good. See that he goes on observing that. I do this
myself."

"Yes, sir. I understand so."

"Does he sleep at night?"

"When he finally goes to bed, sir, he goes off at once."

"It's useful I cultivated it many years ago. It's a valuable habit
for busy people." He smoked thoughtfully for a moment, leaning
back and looking at me, as if measuring me to see how much
strength stood between the life of the Prime Minister and the
dangers and the terrors about him. "Is he hard to handle?"

"Yes, sir. He's reckless and self-willed. Restraint of any kind is
unendurable to him."

"Well, take care of him. He's about the greatest man in the
world. In fact he may very likely be the greatest. You have a ter-
rible responsibility in safeguarding him. You have the responsi-
bility of four or five hundred million people, Thompson."

He smiled, dismissed me, and was instantly at work. Churchill
was this way, too, total attention to the matter under scrutiny.

We then left the Augusta, finding Ensign (later Lieutenant)
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., waiting for us at the gangway. He and
Mr. Churchill spoke together. Young Roosevelt said a most com-
forting thing, and in my hearing: that a thorough understanding
had been reached. It was the first I heard of it. The younger
Roosevelt accompanied us to the Prince of Wales. On the way
Mr. Churchill said to him: "Your father is a great man."

This precipitated one of the most interesting conversations at
least for individual slant that I have heard. Roosevelt, Jr., imme-
diately thanked the Prime Minister, then amended the observa-
tion to: "I think my father is becoming a great man."

"Yes," said Winston, seeing the point at once. "He has cer-
tainly had much to get through. And to get over."

"That is it. He has been determined to get over his affliction,

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 239

and he lias done so. It hasn't reduced his activity, mental or
physical, nor impaired the fairness or clarity of Ms judgments. My
father is a very religious man, Mr. Churchill. I presume you know
this."

"I have sensed it."

"He is brainy but if he is great, it is through his determination
to set aside obstacles. Setting aside his own was first."

"It is my opinion, and one not arrived at without a consider-
able range of samplings and comparisons, that your father is one
of the greatest men on the earth today."

To this young Roosevelt replied, smiling: "Father was talking
to me of you while you were out of the dining room yesterday and
said that Churchill "

Here the Prime Minister interrupted with gruff good humor.
"No no! Never that. 'Winston.' 'Winston.' Your father always
calls me 'Winston.' He's never to do anything else!"

"Yes, sir. Correct, sir. So he does. So he will too, I'm sure!"
They laughed together here. Roosevelt, Jr., continued. "In any
case, he said quite plainly and without reservation that you are the
greatest statesman the world has ever known."

Churchill's eyes glistened and a tremble went through him.

"I do not think of myself this way. I hardly think of myself
at all. I'm just in the flood of the circumstance."

"But the world thinks of you this way, Mr. Churchill. So does
my father. I told him that history would have time to make these
evaluations but meantime it was my own evaluation that he
meaning my father and you, sir, were certainly the greatest two
men of the age and that together you can bring peace to the world
and keep it here."

"Very diplomatic of you, young man. And very challenging.
Thank you now, for bringing us across." Our little ferry trip in
the launch was over. We shook hands and went aboard the Prince
of Wales.

The Atlantic Conference was nearing its happy ending. In a
few days the world would have news of what has since become
known as the Atlantic Charter.

There was a happy little rider to the Atlantic Charter that meant
nothing to the world at large then, but much to us. I have said

240 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

before how much Churchill relied on the Home Guard, even
though it was somewhat ridiculed by those whom it was organized
to protect. And it was a quaint-looking army, to be sure. One of
the reasons, a pretty good one, why this ridicule had some justifi-
cation was that the Home Guard had little to guard with. It was
singularly unarmed. Roosevelt gave Churchill two million rifles
for the Home Guard.

It was time for leavetaking. TMs was done with impressive
brevity. Very soon the fleets would separate. At 5 P.M. with the
crews lining the sides of the ship, and to the strains of the "Star-
Spangled Banner," the Prince of Wales commenced her home-
ward journey. As we passed the Augusta where her ship's company
also lined the sides, the Prime Minister stood at salute and re-
mained so until we had passed all the U.S.A. ships.

The Old Man was tired, and I was glad of it. He took a rest.
I sat down outside his cabin, cleaned my guns, then picked up an
American magazine that I had not before chanced to read. It was
a magazine called Newsweek. It had an astonishing story in it,
and it was printed in the magazine as an advertisement, very dif-
ferent from the English system.

It was a ringing appeal by one single American, Russell Bird-
well, to all other Americans, setting forth his own attitude toward
the war and what the attitude thereto, for the rest of the Amer-
ican nation, ought to be. It shook me all up and thrilled me. Here
it is, in part:

WHAT THE HELL CAN WE GET OUT OF THIS WAR?

THE ANSWER: The best bill of goods any nation has ever had;
the only bill of goods by which any nation can survive; the only
bill of goods by which this nation has ever lived Decency!

And what is decency? the right to live and die without fear.

Hitler has spit in the face of every decent man and woman in
the world. He has spit in the face of every child, in the faces of
men. and women who follow God, be they Jew, Protestant or
Catholic.

Hitler must be killed and all the others who would be Hitlers
must go with him to their graves.

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 241

The United States must declare war against Germany and with
this declaration add a simple clause condemning to death Hitler
and his agents. The international gangland must go.

I have a feeling the world will be decent again and the United
States will help its gallant brothers England and China to make
it so. If it takes the rest of our days, let's at least bequeath our
children a decent world. That's a mighty fine legacy we inherited.

It's close on to midnight . . . another dawn is about to break
through.

Mr. President and Congress s we are awaiting your marching
orders. Surely there is a job for every man and woman in the
United States to do at this zero hour.

RUSSELL BIRDWELL,

New York City, My 10, 1941

In the middle of the Atlantic we suddenly and dramatically
changed course by several compass degrees. You could feel the
great battleship turn, even if you were not watching the water. A
destroyer ahead of us suddenly cut right across our bows. We all
thought of U-boats of course. The ship's sirens sounded.

Then the captain announced to the ship's company that we
were going to Iceland, and from that island on to Scapa Flow.
He particularly emphasized the need for vigilance,

"We are in dangerous waters here," he said coldly.

I immediately rehearsed Mr. Churchill in his first and second
duties: the physical mechanics of escape; and Ms movements
from one position to another in the event we were attacked. He
added his own plan: if it appeared he would fall into enemy hands
he would shoot it out, keeping his last bullet for himself.

We were warned that air attack was far from unlikely and re-
minded that the Germans by this time had full information about
the conferences having taken place. In matters of this kind, the
enemy always knows something but how much is the question.
Right now, we didn't know whether the Germans knew our exact
location and they would have rather known that than any other
secret at the moment

On Friday, August 15, we learned over the speaker system of

242 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

the ship that a huge convoy was ahead of us. We were told we
would more than likely pass very close to it, that Its presence might
attract a pack of U-boats, and that we were to be ready for attack
at any time, wearing lifebelts while on deck. The "No Smoking"
rule was invoked.

Soon the convoy appeared before us, ten or fifteen miles east.
There were over seventy ships in it. Food and supplies and muni-
tions for England! It was an unbelievably gladdening sight and
concrete proof of America there at our shoulder.

Apparently a signal had gone out to the convoy from the Prince
of Wales, for it seemed to open up politely at the center. We
passed right through the gap. It was ranged In ranks, about five
loaded freighters in fourteen different clusters, with escort vessels
fussing about and darting busily back and forth. Hundreds of
planes were lashed to decks, and huge cases of unknown contents.
Their crews lined the sides and waved. It was a wonderful sight
and one which, should it have been witnessed by Hitler, would
have made him perspire and jiggle about. Passing the leading ship,
we made a circular movement and came back through the lines'
of the convoy again. Mr. Churchill then sent the whole convoy a
message of good luck, flashed to them all in several ways, includ-
ing winking from the battle tower of the Prince oj Wales. We re-
ceived acknowledgment from the Commodore of the convoy fleet
in return. We then circled off north and headed up to Iceland.

We anchored the next morning a short distance from Reyk-
javik, this island's capital, and proceeded to the port by de-
stroyer. On this trip from Newfoundland we had been accom-
panied by the engaging young Lieutenant Roosevelt who seemed
to me in every way a splendid chap, never counting on or referring
to the importance of his father or trading on the usefulness of
being his son. Very few knew it, except for the brief conversations
recorded earlier, and the times when he would be serving as per-
sonal companion to his father, assisting his movement.

On the shores of Reykjavik, a bleak place but not at all inhos-
pitable, we were greeted by the Regent, Sveinn Bjornsson, and
Mr. Hermann Jonasson, the Prime Minister of Iceland.

Winston Churchill went straight to Government House, where
he made a short speech from a window. Then we went on a tour

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 243

of inspection of the British and American troops stationed there.
A car was offered Winston, but he seemed to like the looks of
the road and the terrain wasn't steep at these places, so we
walked. I shouldn't at all like to live in Iceland but all the people
seemed extremely happy, goodhearted, and healthy. They had a
marvelous direct look in their eyes.

The whole parade seemed to stretch more than a mile and after
the inspection, they all marched past the Prime Minister. He took
the salute under the flags of all the represented nations.

On the way back to the car that would return us to the dock-
side half a mile away, a huge crowd had gathered to wave to
Winston. He was pleased and impressed. Several children came up
to him, one cute little girl with a bouquet for him that was truly
a bit bigger than she was. He took it with a great smile and a deep
ceremonious bow, then immediately handed the awful thing to
me.

Soon we took leave. There was a deafening sound of cheering
from every dock and yard. Members of crews waved from mast
and rigging, from shroud and ratline, from anchor chain and fore-
peak.

We reached Scapa Flow without incident, got on the train and
rattled on back to London where he was met by his Cabinet, his
colleagues and many friends on the station platform. There was a
huge crowd of people. He was given a great ovation there. Eight
days later in a broadcast he reported the full story of the Atlantic
Charter meeting. The broadcast was in many ways just for Hitler.
It was in effect a declaration from the democracies to all pepples
of the world that the tyrannies overrunning Europe would be
brought to military termination by the democracies and that free-
doms would everywhere be restored when Hitler was liquidated.

I have many times wondered what we in this country would
have been offered as a defeated nation.

The war continued. You know we lost the Ark Royal. This sent
Churchill into a long depression. The unbelievable statistic in this
immediate catastrophe that only one life out of 1,600 had been
lost lifted his spirit considerably.

Japan was showing her muscles and her grinning impudence.
In a speech at the Mansion House, Churchill warned Japan that

244 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

we should fight at the side of the U.S.A. if they were ever engaged
in conflict and that a declaration of war upon Japan would follow
within an hour of America's making a similar declaration.

The autumn had brought some interesting results: first, of
course, the Atlantic Charter; then, a heartening speech by the
American President that the U.S. might be forced to fight the
Axis; and a third item, probably now forgotten: in a joint action
British and Soviet troops compelled the Iran government to throw
German agents out of their country.

Hitler began sinking American ships. In September the President
ordered the famous: "Shoot at sight," for a U-boat had just at-
tacked and sunk the U.S.S. destroyer Greer. The order did not
stop Hitler. He sunk several American ships in a row. At the
same time, American assistance to British convoys in the Atlantic
improved and continued daily. And the President ordered the U.S.
fleet operating in the Atlantic in defense of American waters to
destroy Axis forces operating there and to protect all merchant
ships in that area.

The months moved on. Air raids lessened over London though
they never ended altogether. Invasion of the Island was still a
possibility. Mr. Churchill became warden of the Cinque Ports
(southeast coast of England, on down to Dover) where the attempt
to breach the coast would surely come. Arrangements were made to
flood this land and niire down any equipment the Germans might
be able to land, and to shell them from the rim or higher ground
that fringes this whole stretch. Plans to let in the sea water were
carefully made by our army's engineers and the gates for this are
still there. Such Germans as might escape or actually pass through
the fire would be slowed here behind the littoral and killed by rifle
fire or in direct hand-to-hand combat. It would be a very dirty
business.

As petrol began to arrive in great quantity and with increas-
ingly dependable regularity, provisions to accelerate its transpor-
tation were made. A pipe was laid clear across the waist of Eng-
land, and a pliable pipe that would bend like cable and could be
unreeled from cable spool was being designed for later use to lie
on the Channel's bottom and feed gasoline for land and air trans-
port when the time for their use would be at hand. Of course it

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 245

was a long time coming, but It was there when the moment called
for It.

The Japanese representatives were in Washington, discussing
the differences of their two countries with Cordell Hull. The bob-
bing Japs kept "hoping" that war could be averted, all the time
knowing what was smoldering at the other end of the fuse.

Then that perfidious thing happened! And with Roosevelt's note
actually on its way to Japan's Emperor!

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, they also landed in
half a dozen places on British territory. The circumstance was in
some measure foreseen by Churchill, enabling him in advance to
warn Japan that we'd fight with the Americans if they had to
fight the Japanese and enabling him to back up that warning, and
actually within "the very hour" he had threatened. We were shoul-
der to shoulder with the Americans now in a war that was now a
global one.

Having foreseen the possibility of Japanese attack, Churchill
had detached the Prince of Wales and the Repulse from their duty
in holding the German main fleet to continental ports and had sent
them both to the Far East.

You will remember we lost these two mighty ships together
and but a few hours apart.

Never before had a capital ship been sunk by aerial torpedo.
Furious blame was laid at Winston's door for this. He was in a
daze, hardly believing. Duff Cooper put it succinctly: "The English
are more than usually right but sometimes thirty years behind/'

Admiral Phillips of the Prince of Wales, who had been a fight-
ing captain in the Royal Navy for over forty years, did not be-
lieve in air support. No Englishman, for that matter, believed
either that Singapore could be taken through her kitchen door.
Yet she was.

For days Churchill moped around, sitting and staring. "I don't
understand what happened. I don't understand it."

The loss of these two great ships, in the same attack, was a
terrible setback to the increase in our naval strength that we had
just managed to win by an overwhelming effort

Winston wept quietly over the disaster in the Far East. I never

246 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

saw him take a war shock so hard, nor ever saw one prey on Mm
for so long a time.

It was December. The Prime Minister was to go to the United
States. We would leave within forty-eight hours. We were to go on
the Duke of York, the great fighting ship which I had seen
launched by Her Majesty the Queen months before.

The journey commenced in terrible Atlantic weather. We were
in dangerous waters west of Ireland. We traveled at a consider-
able speed without escort. Later on we were met by U.S. de-
stroyers, many of which found it difficult to keep up with our
flying battleship, the fastest I had ever been on, or Churchill either.
At Bermuda, when I stopped to have a glass of ale, I ran into an
American sailor who had just disembarked from one of the Amer-
ican destroyers. He was telling a bar friend of the trip. He had a
good summary of it: "We were told to escort a battleship," he
said. "Not a goddam greyhound!"

The Duke was certainly fast, I can testify.

We arrived at Chesapeake Bay. The Prime Minister and his
party immediately left the ship and flew to Washington. It was
night time. Those in the plane were transfixed with delight to look
down from the windows and see the amazing spectacle of a whole
city all lighted up. Washington represented something immensely
precious. Freedom, hope, strength. We had not seen an illuminated
city for two years. My heart filled.

We were driven in a huge convoy of cars to the White House.
This was my first experience with the enormous protective meas-
ures thrown around the President in Washington. I had never
seen or heard of anything like it. Our Prime Minister, with two
Scotland Yard men (my Scotland Yard colleague on this trip was
a fine fellow, Sergeant Charles Dudgeon), is able to travel freely
anywhere in England, while the President not only has to have an
armored car wherever he goes but is also protected by a minimum
of twelve men often eighteen all bristling with guns.

On arrival at the White House, the President went into a large
sitting room and received the large group while seated behind a
flag bedecked table. One by one, the members of the Churchill

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 247

party passed by and were introduced. I personally felt quite hon-
ored when he looked up brightly at my approaching him and shook
hands warmly. "Well, Thompson, I am very glad to see you again!
And to see you have taken such good care of the Prime Minister."

I was immediately struck by the obvious sense of easy cor-
diality between Roosevelt and Churchill. They were instantly en
rapport.

Several of the men who had accompanied Churchill to New-
foundland were also with him this time but three important addi-
tions had been made in the December trip: Lord Beaverbrook, Air
Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal and General L. C. Holliss of the
Office of the Ministry of Defense. Altogether there were over
eighty of us.

Among the Americans who had made up the core of the Pres-
ident's group for the Atlantic meeting were Mr. Harry Hopkins,
General George Catlett Marshall, and Admiral King. Here in this
room now were most of the brains that would have to find the
solution to the problem of the Axis' destruction. And they looked
as if they could do it.

There was the White House Christmas Tree lighting. It is a
pretty ceremony. Hymns, robed choruses, and a presidential Christ-
mas greeting to his own nation, that was in turn flashed around
the world by radio relay and short wave. I believe we witnessed
the nineteenth consecutive year this happy ceremony has been
conducted by an American President.

I know that all of the Englishmen watching were struck by the
significance of those lights in America; what it meant to us cannot
quite be stated. And apart from any symbolic interpretation which
might be put upon the proceedings, the scene itself with a light,
picture card fall of snow was unforgettable. The vast crowd, the
voices drifting across the keen night air, the songs and the chil-
dren's voices then the fine bracing sound of the U.S. Marine
Band Roosevelt's voice, then Churchill's I shall remember the
spell and the exhilaration of this hour all my life.

The second time you do anything, it is always easier. So it was
with this second meeting with President Roosevelt I was com-
pletely staggered by the security arrangements all over Washing-
ton. There were even extra officers from Scotland Yard, but to run

248 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

into Mike Reiliy again seemed very good indeed. We had become
good friends in the Atlantic Charter talks.

In the White House, though one felt surrounded by guns, a true
friendliness came through to us all. The Americans seemed to
adjust more easily to the melodrama of "assassination possibility"
than the English do.

And it was true that I was to remain in the White House, close
by Mr. Churchill's own suite. My first night in the White House I
spent in getting acquainted with its security problem and attuning
myself to it and to any conceivable demand on my being needed
in a hurry. While poking about, sizing up things, determining
heights, distances, telephone locations, exposed risks from bed to
bath, etc., I was aware that Mr. Churchill was also poking about,
opening drawers and getting himself settled. The room was very
warm. All rooms in America are always very warm. Mr. Churchill
throve on this. I heard him yawn once or twice, and heard ice
chinking pleasantly in his drink. There was a knock at the door.
Churchill's valet was not about. "See to that, please, Thompson."

I of course went to the door and opened it, only a crack of
course. I was somewhat astonished to discover it to be the Pres-
ident of the United States. He was there in a wheelchair all alone.
I opened the door wide for him to come in, then saw the President
look curiously beyond me, not with fright but with something very
unlike approval. I turned. Winston Churchill was stark naked, a
drink in one hand, a cigar in the other.

The President offered at once to withdraw and began to turn
his chair.

"Come on in, Franklin. We're quite alone." He beamed cor-
dially, then looked innocently down at his dramatic nudity. Pres-
ident Roosevelt hesitated, then with an odd shrug that might have
meant, "We're all boys together," he moved on in. Churchill posed
briefly and ludicrously before the President: <c You see, Mr. Pres-
ident, I have nothing to hide," then tossed a Turkish towel over a
shoulder. For an hour he strolled about, happy and full of talk,
sipping from his glass, twice filling the President's. He might have
been a Roman at the baths, relaxing after a successful debate in
the Senate. I don't believe Mr. Churchill would have blinked an
eye if Mrs. Roosevelt had walked in too. He's the most modest

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 249

of men, but with him nudity and modesty are unrelated, nudity
being man's most natural state.

In Washington, everywhere we went, all the Americans wanted
to know what the bombing was like, and what the city of London
looked like. It was not hard to tell them. There was an enormous
variety and contrast of outlook among the Americans. Some
showed greatly informed curiosities about us, many of course
had visited England; but many had very odd views indeed which
I tried to repair. But I also found that most Americans prefer not
to have their present notions of much of anything repaired but
would prefer to retain what they have, whatever it may be, and
in this respect I cannot find they are much different from the Eng-
lish. In one respect, though, we were all together, and the Amer-
icans themselves were closely cemented. They all had the same
notion about the perfidy of Pearl Harbor.

Some perfectly delightful Americans took pity on us two rather
lonely Scotland Yard officers. Mr. and Mrs. Frank J. Wilson Mr.
Wilson being of the United States Secret Service invited us to
join them for Christinas dinner. Before leaving the White House to
keep this happy engagement, a Negro maid came up to me and
said: "I have been asked to give you this by Mrs. Roosevelt."

I opened the package and was pleasantly surprised to find a
beautiful necktie and a small white envelope enclosing a Christmas
card. These words were written on the card: "For Inspector Walter
Henry Thompson Christmas 1941 a Merry Christmas from the
President and Mrs. Roosevelt."

I guess my jaw must have hung loosely for a moment, as the
Negro girl stood watching me in dubious fascination. I simply
could not believe that the President of a nation, with his country-
men preparing to wage the greatest war in their history, could
think of giving a necktie to a police officer on Christmas. Sergeant
Dudgeon couldn't believe it either.

My instructions were to be ready to accompany Mr. ChurcMU
to the Presidenf s and Mrs. Roosevelt's church for worship and I
was of course ready.

All my earlier ideas of gangster-ridden Chicago came back to
me, with the added incongruity that we were bound for church to
worsMp our Maker. Enormous precautions were taken. Ahead of

250 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

us were two long lines of uniformed police on motorcycles with
sidecars. Directly behind the President's car were two immense,
open touring cars, filled with Secret Service men. All traffic stopped
as we proceeded to the church. On arrival within the edifice I had
thought dimly that the ancient right of sanctuary would have
somewhat reduced the size and obviousness of so much armed pro-
tection. But it was not so. All the approaches were under guard.
Occupants of houses all the way along to the church had been
ordered to stay out of sight, off their porches, and to draw their
blinds. I did not see a single face looking out of a single window.
At the church itself a whole cordon of Secret Service men, with
guns drawn, spread out in a semicircle, watched all the windows in
the neighborhood, waiting for any emergency. I could not help
thinking back over the years at the many occasions when the
Prime Minister had visited Westminster Abbey or St. Paul's or
when Their Majesties had done so and the great difference, the
freedom with which they could move.

I walked into the church at my correct distance from Mr.
Churchill, my hand quietly holding my gun butt. It all seemed fan-
tastic that fine people had to be so continuously and visibly pro-
tected from elements so bestial even though unseen.

Inside the cathedral it was little better. The pews before and
behind were occupied by agents and there were many more stand-
ing about. I of course cannot condemn these methods and am not
doing so. The Americans know their local problems and deal with
them. And whatever their methods, they managed to keep harm
away from their President as I had thus far been able to do for
my own charge.

Coming back from the service was about the same as if a
huge consignment of gold bullion were being moved to a bank
down a street where known groups of gangsters with machine
guns were waiting for the right moment to strike. Churchill felt
this way too, for he gave me a most dramatic look as he stepped
from my immediate protection back into that of the Americans
a look that was half deprecatory and ludicrous. Yet that was the
temper of the times and those were the precautions considered
necessary.

Returning to the White House, Mr. Churchifl wanted to be left

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 251

alone for several hours. It had become known that he had been
invited to address both Houses at the Capitol. An air of excite-
ment prevailed. Everyone wanted to know what he was going to
say. What could I tell them? I was most relieved that Sergeant
Dudgeon and myself had our own dinner invitation to accept.
Churchill was greatly relieved that someone had taken us in, and
when I told him of it and asked his permission, he said: "Of course
you must both go. I shall be enjoying myself with the President for
a few hours and writing for many more after that."

We went downstairs in the huge White House and found that
our Secret Service host had put a car at our disposal. We were
driven to Mr. Wilson's home. On arrival there we met a Mr. A. H.
Callaghan of the Secret Service of Chicago, his wife and a Mrs.
C. E. Douglas. We had a most enjoyable time. Our hosts had really
excelled themselves. I have never seen such a meal.

They also had presents for us and cards, including a card for
the Prime Minister.

People, especially in America, seem most interested in Mr.
Churchill's smoking habits. Our Christmas hosts were no excep-
tion. It is true Churchill usually has a cigar in his mouth. But if
you remember the motion pictures of him, you will recall that he
does not seem to be smoking the cigars. And this is true. He will
light a cigar immediately after breakfast, but by lunchtime the
same cigar may be only half finished, having been relighted in-
numerable times and quite as often abandoned soon after. He
chews cigars, he doesn't smoke them. And his average of cigars
destroyed is about five per day. He hates cigarettes and though
he will accept one at a cocktail party or reception and even will
accept a proffered light, I have noticed repeatedly that the cigarette
will disappear almost at once.

He likes Cuban cigars best by far, for smoking or merely for
waving them about as he talks. His special brand is Romeo and
Juliet. People are forever giving Mm cigars by the thousand.

One day a United States soldier came to Number Ten Downing
Street and asked if he could see the Prime Minister. After being
told by the doorkeeper that it was not possible and upon my
seeing how downcast the young chap felt, I went forward to him
and asked if I could be of some help. He informed me brightly

252 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

that he had discovered where Mr. Churchill purchased his cigars
and had been to the store and bought two, one of which he was
then smoking but the other of which he wanted to hand to the
Prime Minister.

It seemed to this young American to be a matter of the greatest
moment. I asked him to wait and slipped out to a telephone. I
called the store and was informed that the young soldier had in-
deed just then left the store and had said that he wanted to buy
a cigar for "the great man" and "have a puff or two with him."

As it appeared genuine, I informed him that the cigar would
be given to Winston Churchill and that he would in time receive
a personal letter from the Prime Minister. This was done and the
Old Man did actually smoke the cigar the soldier had brought to
Downing Street.

But this is very rare. It would be easy to put poison in a cigar.
They could be loaded in many ways, even with germs. For se-
curity reasons I could never allow Winston to have them unless
we knew the sender well.

Insisting upon this precaution was sometimes embarrassing, but
on our American visits it was often very close to tragic. At the
White House particularly it was most sad, for here each day and
from all over North America and South America and from hun-
dreds of West Indies islands came uncountable boxes of the finest
cigars ever made. Hundreds of thousands of them went right into
the White House incinerator. Others often smoked them or took
them home. But never Winston. And none of the White House
staff was permitted to smoke them anywhere in the District of
Columbia. But I never heard of one exploding.

His cigars, in a real sense, were somewhat as his drinking. He
loved good whisky and brandy but drank very little. He could
drink and I have heard him say he wished he might at one time
have had the opportunity to see whether he could carry as much as
Oscar Wilde who could drink three bottles of brandy in a day,
so it was said. Of course his suggestion was pure imagination and
swagger. But probably he could drink the Russians stupid nearly
anyone could do that if he tried, the trick being not to drink fast
but many days could pass in a row and Churchill never touch
a drop save his pint of champagne every day. He was religious

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 253

about the champagne, Ms only health fetish. People think he
drinks and many people think he drinks hard. There are two sea-
sons for this: one is that Churchill thinks people want to think this
of him so he lets them think so; the other, that when in company
of people who are drinking, he always has a drink in his hand.
It is usually full up too, but at the end of an hour, when other
guests have had two or three or even four, QmrcMirs glass is
often still full up and still the same glass.

Also he drinks a lot of iced soda water without whisky. And
further he has a most disarming little trick: he likes to busy him-
self at the tables or sideboards where the liquor is being decanted.
People think he is taking care of himself. And he is.

He hates anything that delays or impedes or blurs Ms thought,
and though he enjoys Scotch whisky and brandy and may perhaps,
in a month's time, consume quite an amount, I have never seen him
drunk in Ms life. When Field Marshal Montgomery was explain-
ing his perfect physical condition to the late King ("I never touch
tobacco or spirits and am 100 per cent fit"), Mr. Churchill imme-
diately rejoined that he himself was an enthusiastic user of brandy
and cigars "and I am 200 per cent fit." And that is true. But only
the appearance of heavy use is there, not the intake. In all things
physical, he is moderate.

Churchill is always quiet before a speech. It is dangerous to
speak to him. There is one little ritual between us. I must always
ask him whether he has remembered to put Ms speech glasses in
his pocket. He is forgetful of them, and has great difficulty read-
ing typed notes without them. He patted his pocket. Yes, he had
them. He beamed brightly.

We then started our journey. We were more impressively sur-
rounded by bodyguards than ever before. And all the members of
the American Cabinet seemed to have their own guards. We could
have taken on quite a squad of armed Japs between us. Mr.
Churchill and the President were cheered all the way to the Cap-
itol. I was very proud of my man. Many people along the wide
boulevards of Washington gave the V sign and waved and shouted.
The Americans let out their feelings a lot better or at least a lot
oftener than we do.

Within fee Senate Chamber it surely looked like a full house.

254 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

All present were keyed up and eager to hear Mr. Churchill. Shortly
after, Mr. Churchill entered the Chamber, and everyone rose and
cheered for many minutes. When Americans cheer they cheer all
over. Flashbulbs appeared from all about. Several hundred pic-
tures were taken. For myself, usually cool, I felt such an enormous
pride I could not sit still and hated to think how good my aim
would have been if I had had to use my revolver. Among those
present to hear him were the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

After he was presented, a great hush fell upon all those in the
Senate Chamber. Those in the gallery leaned forward. Winston
began to speak with great assurance and, in the early states of his
address, with much humor. I should like to recall some of it
for you:

Members of the Senate and of the House of Representatives of
the United States: I feel greatly honored that you should have
thus invited me to enter the United States Senate Chamber and
address the representatives of both branches of Congress. The
fact that my American forebears have for so many generations
played their part in the life of the United States and that here I
am, an Englishman, welcomed in your midst, makes this experi-
ence one of the most moving and thrilling in my life, which is
already long and has not been entirely uneventful.

I wish indeed that my mother, whose memory I cherish across
the vale of years, could have been here to see. By the way, I can-
not help reflecting that if my father had been an American and my
mother British, instead of the other way around, I might have got
here on my own.

At this point the happy laughter and affectionate approval
broke up his speech for several moments. Afterward he became
more personal as to his own purpose and belief, and candidly
told the Americans what he felt about the war. I will quote enough
of it to bring back this great event to you.

The forces ranged against us are enormous. It is quite true that
on our side our resources in manpower and materials are far
greater than theirs. But only a portion of your resources are as
yet mobilized.

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 255

We have indeed to be thankful that so much time has been
granted to us. If Germany had tried to Invade the British Isles
after the French collapse in June, 1940, and if Japan had declared
war on the British Empire and the United States at about the
same date, no one can say what disaster and agonies might not
have been our lot. But now, at the end of December, 1941, our
transformation from easygoing peace to total war efficiency has
made very great progress.

I think it would be reasonable to hope that the end of 1942 will
see us quite definitely in a better position than we are now, and
that the year 1943 will enable us to assume the initiative upon an
ample scale. Some people may be startled or momentarily de-
pressed when, like your President, I speak of a long, hard war.

Our peoples would rather know the truth, somber though it
may be, and after all, when we are doing the most blessed work
in the world, not only defending our hearths and homes, but the
cause of freedom in every land, the question of whether deliver-
ance comes in 1942 or 1943 or 1944 falls into its proper place in
the grand proportions of human history.

Many people have been astonished that Japan, in a single day,
has made war on the United States and the British Empire.

Is it possible they do not realize that we shall never cease to
persevere against them until they have been taught a lesson which
they and the world will never forget?

Members of the Senate and members of the House of Repre-
sentatives: I'll turn for one moment more from the turmoil and
convulsions of the present to the broader spaces of the future.
Here we are together, facing a group of mighty foes who seek
our ruin.

Five or six years ago, it would have been easy, without shed-
ding a drop of blood, for the United States and Great Britain to
have insisted on the fulfillment of the disarmament clauses of the
treaties which Germany signed after the great war.

The chance has departed; it is gone. Prodigious hammer strokes
have been needed to bring us together today.

It is not given to us to peer into the mysteries of the future; yet,
in the days to come, the British and American peoples will, for
their own safety and for the good of all, walk together in majesty,
in justice, and in peace.

256 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

He stood still for a moment at the end, then turned and sat
down. There was an instant of dead silence. Then, as the Amer-
icans say, "all hell broke loose." Something great for all the Eng-
lish-speaking peoples all over the world had happened in those
minutes and it is still going on.

The enthusiasm that flowed with Winston Churchill that day in
Washington carried on into Ottawa. He greatly loves Canada and
loves to be 5n Canada. He busied himself, even before leaving the
United States, with the address he was preparing for delivery in
the Canadian Capitol.

We left Washington on December 28, being accompanied by
Mr. Mackenzie King, Prime Minister of Canada. At the Canadian
border we were met by numbers of the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police. They are most picturesque in their red tunics, blue
breeches, highly polished jackboots and stetsons. I have seen many
of these men during my visits to Canada and I consider them,
not only in terms of physique but also from the point of police
officers, to be among the finest in the world. One felt safe at the
mere sight of a Royal Mounted Police officer in Canada.

We were met in the Ottawa station by a huge crowd, well
muffled, most of them in furs. We wished the same for ourselves
the instant we stepped down. It was fifteen degrees below zero.
The ovation Mr, Churchill received was a typical Canadian one,
and we had considerable difficulty in getting him to his car.

The journey to Government House had been arranged so that
Mr. Churchill could take in many parts of the city, and during
his drive he was greeted from every side. The orderliness of the
people here, en route, was most noticeable. They remained where
the police had suggested they stay on the sides of the road-
very much as London crowds would do. "Good old Winnie!"
would ring out, then a cheer. "Good luck, Winston!" Such could
be heard constantly.

After luncheon at the world-famous hotel, Chateau Laurier,
with members of the Canadian Cabinet and Chiefs of Staff, he was
greeted by Inspector Wilson of the Royal Canadian Mounted Po-
lice, and told the Inspector he was honored to be in their charge.
The Inspector gave him a large round box and suggested he open
it later, at the press conference at Government House. This Win-

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 257

ston did. With all the newsmen gathered round, Winston un-
wrapped the gift and found it to be a Canadian fur hat, a real
beauty. He wore it all the time after that and would never alow
anyone to touch it, but would stand indefinitely while Ms picture
was taken.

Tuesday, December 30, was the day of Ms speech in the Cana-
dian House of Commons. Here the preliminary greetings were as
noisy, if possible, as they had been in America. When the great
room became still, he commenced, very quietly at first, then warm-
ing to Ms subject. Sometimes you can see something coming from
Winston for several moments before it arrives. It was evident now,
from the humorous smile that began to grow larger and larger on
his face. Everyone knew something unusual was on the way. Re-
ferring to France, he said: "But their chiefs misled them. When
I warned them that Britain would fight on alone, their chiefs told
their Prime Minister and Ms Cabinet that in three weeks England
would have her neck wrung like a chicken." Here he paused, took
off his glasses, and peered down at the multitudes in front of him,
and loudly shouted: "SOME CHICKEN! SOME NECK!"

Never will I forget that day! This comment, hilarious, defiant,
indomitable, brought the whole House to its feet, roaring.

Our journey back to Washington, where we were to spend a
few days before the Prime Minister was to have a brief holiday
in Palm Beach, carried us out of the old year and into the new. All
on board Churchill's train were delighted to receive a message that
the Prime Minister wished to see them in the dining saloon.
Drinks were passed around, and at midnight Mr. Churchill gave
the toast: "Here's to a year of toil, a year of struggle and peril, and
a long step forward to Victory!" After this, with hands joined,
"Auld Lang Syne" was sung, the Prime Minister holding the hands
of Sir Charles Portal and a Royal Air Force sergeant. It was a
representative and typical party, including press photographers,
newsmen and women, the wMte and Negro staff of the train, and
the private staff of the Prime Minister.

Back in the United States the interest being shown in Churchill's
speeches was apparent everywhere. He was constantly being
quoted. References in all the journals were being made to him
and what he*d said; so were short paragraphs from his speeches,

258 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

remarks selected at random. One especially that caught the Amer-
ican imagination was this: "We are looking forward to the in-
vasion So are the fishes!" But the one that stayed with most,
that will go on as part of the life and legend of the man, was
the following. "We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the
end. We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing
grounds. We shall never surrender."

Our stay in Washington was very short. Soon we were in West
Palm Beach, having been flown there in General George Marshall's
plane. Winston needed this rest very badly.

A beautiful villa had been placed at his disposal at Palm Beach,
at a considerable distance from the next nearest property. I had
never seen a place quite like it and was having much trouble in
forcing myself to believe that we had within less than four days
been in temperatures which went down to thirty below zero during
the night, and stayed below zero all day.

I don't know whether it was a vacation or not. He went into the
ocean practically every day, sometimes more than once, but he
refused to take it as a holiday and refused to let his staff take it as
one. He worked on until the early hours of the morning just as if
he were in London, and on many occasions was on the telephone
to London or Washington, sometimes at three and four in the
morning.

The day following our arrival, I approached the Prime Minister
to find out what kind of a swimsuit he would like me to get for him.
I told him I was going to a store in town to get one for myself.

"I don't think I need one," he said blandly, and to my aston-
ishment.

I made the polite sounds implying doubt and just the faintest
remonstrance the kind of noises butlers make in the cinema
when they don't use words.

"No," he continued, unimpressed. "It's quite private here. And
no one knows I'm staying in this part. It's quite a secret And I've
been promised it's one that'll be well kept."

Both these statements were of course true.

"You see, Thompson," he encouraged, waving toward the villa,
"I have only to step out of the back door into the sea."

"But you can be seen through field glasses, sir," I said.

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 259

To which he instantly replied: "If they are that much interested,
it is their own fault what they see!"

I knew it would be money thrown away to buy Mm a swimsuit.
What did he do about this? Just what you think.

He did carry a large towel "in deference to local propriety/'
as he said. This covered him from head to toe, but he would
abandon this garment as soon as he got close to the ocean itself,
and paddle about, puffing and swimming, treading water, floating
on his back, rolling, foaming and in general taking complete
charge of this portion of the Atlantic and just as happy and as
naked as the day he was born. Then he'd sun himself in the nude.
He looked like a huge, weE-adjusted and slightly over-bottled
baby boy, all grins and natural surrender.

His valet, who would stand by patiently with the towel, waiting
for the Prime Minister's eventual beaching, kept darting his glance
up and down the long white strip of sand, fearful that this awful
secret might somehow get out.

One day it very nearly did, not so much the nude swimming of
the King's First Minister as the fact that it was indeed Churchill
who was staying at this particular villa. No one but a king or a
gangster could command so much attention and curiosity and re-
quire so many armed guards. But nothing exasperates or chal-
lenges the average American newspaperman so much as a story
they can't crack or a place they can't crash. They knew some-
body interesting was in this villa and that it was not the owner.

On our third day at the villa a car drove up containing two
ladies. They alighted and politely wanted to be told who was in
residence. The American Secret Service men put them off by say-
ing that someone who had been ill had rented the villa. They
hoped the explanation would suffice. I knew it wouldn't.

The women were representatives of the press and no mistake.
I thought of the Europa in 1931; the fellow who put on the
steward's jacket and cap. I needed no warning. I only have to be
told once. I knew the girls would be back. One of them was a
good-looking girl. As their car drove away from the villa, she
kept looking back. They ckcled the driveway once and came right
back, but were severely waved off by the Secret Service this time.

The vlla was on high ground. The guard which was maintained

260- ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

by the Secret Service and by ourselves covered every approach.
It was therefore even more surprising, since they had been driven
away, to see these women some distance away on the beach, com-
ing in our direction. One of the girls stopped, poked a beach
umbrella into the sand and sat down. The other one took off her
shoes and stockings and began wading up toward us, carefully
not looking our way. We made ourselves invisible, only one of us
remaining within sight.

The barefoot girl was the good-looking one. She was the first
person to pass along the beach since our arrival seventy-two hours
earlier.

When she reached our part of the beach, she got into conversa-
tion with one of the young Secret Service men. From one of the
windows, which was my station during the informal watches that
we set up, I could see and hear her. As a newspaper person she
was very determined and as a woman very direct. She told the
Secret Service man that she knew someone of great importance
was in that villa. He said, "So what?" She said, "If you can tell
me who it is, I will go away and just print that and no more. If,
however, you can arrange to get me an interview with him, you
may spend your nights with me in case I happen to appeal to
you in that way/' "How many nights," he asked. "A week?" she
suggested.

I had not yet reached an age where my contemplation of this
young man's dilemma was one of philosophical detachment. In
fact I was plain fascinated. But I am happy to report that after a
searing inventory of himself, followed by some of the most inter-
esting dialogue I ever heard in America, the Secret Service came
through in a fine, though battered, show of self-denial. And I'm
sure it wasn't easy. She looked very nice with her shoes off, a con-
dition recommended by one of my own countrymen, Bea Lillie.

But the strong man did the strong, noble, uninteresting thing.
He did more. He gave her a folding camp stool so she could get
her stockings back on and it was during this rather delightful op-
eration I had to remind myself that I also lived by a harsh code.

So the privacy of the Prime Minister was never penetrated. The
press everywhere else had been splendid. They were very much

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 261

for him. On January 6, the President, in a speech to Congress, re-
ferred to Churchill's visit in this way: "All in our nation have been
cheered by Mr. Churchill's visit. We have been stirred by his great
message to us. We wish him a safe return to his home." This
remark tended to give the impression, at home and abroad, that
the Prime Minister was on his way home.

But secretly we returned on January 10 to Washington.

The last morning at the villa, though it was raining, Winston
decided to take a final swim in the ocean. While walking down to
the water we all heard a loud shout. A shark had been sighted.
Indeed it could be very easily seen, not twenty feet from the
shore line. It was at least fifteen feet long. It coasted lazily past,
a gentle-moving terror if ever there was one. He was told it was
probably a sand shark and that it would do no harm. In Florida,
I discovered that every shark is a sand shark and no sand shark
is ever hungry. I told Churchill to stay out of the water; that my
usefulness ended at the edge. The shark was big enough to eat a
horse. Even Winston was impressed. "Sand shark? I am not so
sure about that I want to see his Identification Card before I
trust myself to him." But he went in anyhow, though not far.
"Keep sending me bulletins, Thompson," he shouted. "Keep him
classified as inoffensive!" The shark turned in a slow half circle,
looked at the Prime Minister, and swam away.

"My bulk has frightened him into deeper water,' 9 said Winston,
and pawed about happily.

Back in Washington the Prime Minister worked under cover
with the President and the Chiefs of Staff for five days. On the
night of the 15th we were taken by a secret route and put on an
unmarked sleeping train. We did an hour's trip on this train, all
the blinds drawn. It was full of Secret Service men. I was mighty
glad to see so many of them about A killing would have mate-
rially and tragically altered history.

We went to Bermuda by the flying boat Berwick. Captain
Kelly Rogers was in command I marveled at the accommodations.
It was not only large but luxurious. The dining room would seat
twelve. Churchill catft resist airplanes, and though he's poor at
the controls, lie doesn't know this. Once aboard, he appropriated

262 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

the copilot's seat, cigar and all. For purposes of easy movement
he was wearing his well-known siren suit, which he calls his
"rompers." Winston was as delighted to be at the controls ("I
have just reappointed myself Minister for Air, Thompson") as I
was nervous to have him there.

He was to speak in Bermuda, then we were to return to Eng-
land on the Duke of York. But it was apparent he'd fallen in love
with the Berwick.

"I need to save the time, Thompson," he rationalized, sensing
my objections before I made them. It was altogether unnecessary
for Winston Churchill to fly back to England but fly he did
without me.

We met up again in six days. He reported his visit to the United
States to the House of Commons. German broadcasts were trying
to show that the government in Great Britain was about to col-
lapse. To answer this, Churchill decided he would make the debate
on the war's progress an issue, for the purpose of obtaining a vote
of confidence. He got it 464 to 1.

Nineteen forty-two was rough. Hitler, in his New Year's mes-
sage to the German people, said: "The year 1942 will bring the
final decision and will mean the salvation of our people."

Indeed, we still had to take our worst blows, some in the belly,
some in the heart. Some of them doubled us clear over. While
Russia was hitting back at Sevastopol and Rostov, the danger to
Singapore was becoming daily more critical. Almost all the
Pacific news was bad.

In Africa, Derna and Benghazi were lost to us. Roimnel seemed
irresistible. During these months, he was too. After Churchill dis-
patched the Repulse and the Prince of Wales to Far East waters,
the Scharnhorst, Gneisnau, and Prinz Eugen escaped through the
English Channel to the safety of German waters. It was a bril-
liant and daring piece of seamanship and made us all look like
chumps. It needed a lot of explaining.

But the fall of Singapore staggered the English spirit. And the
Japanese treatment of civilians there, including the wives of Eng-
lish subjects and civil servants, was sickening in the extreme.
Many were raped. Many committed suicide. Some were mercl-

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 263

fully shot by their own husbands before the Japs could get at
them. The fall of Singapore was a truly damaging military defeat
of far-reaching and in some ways irreparable effect. It shook
Churchill worse than did the evacuation of Dunkirk. At Dunkirk,
we saved the majority of the army. But at Singapore, we could
not make replacements. We lost a whole army.

In England I fear we were under a false impression that Singa-
pore was impregnable. From remarks which the Prime Minister
had made at various times as recently as six weeks before at a
press conference in Ottawa it would appear today that he also
shared that opinion. He was dumbfounded. During my period of
guarding him beginning in 1921 I have never seen him so dis-
heartened. He could take the worst sort of knock, but this seemed
one that was beyond his control. It was almost as if, through an
unexampled carelessness, he had caused the death of one of his
own children. These were bitter days. He could not sleep or eat.

When about to crack, he was urged to take some few days off.
This he did, with Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Tree as Ms hosts. We
arrived on a Friday evening. Phones were cut off so he could sleep.
About thirty minutes after he retired, I was notified that he wanted
to see me. I went right up. He told me that the telephone had
awakened him. He was not angry. He was just pathetic. In a mis-
erable voice, and with a face as pale as paper, he rose unsteadily
and went over to a desk. "Sleep for me is finished. I will do some
work." I later found that although I had asked the house operator
to stop all calls to the Prime Minister, a switch that transferred
calls from the secretaries' room to that of Mr. Churchill had not
been taken off.

I then had a talk with Mr. Rowan, one of the Prime Minister's
secretaries, and told him my secret fear: that Winston was so
despondent, I actually felt if some relief to his mind were not
soon discovered, he would descend into despair. It was agreed we
should speak to his doctors and urge a longer holiday, and do so
right away.

While dressing the second morning, he listened to my sugges-
tion about a trip. "Yes, you are quite right^ Thompson." He was,
as I could tell by Ms physical actions in the mere matter of put-

264 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

ting on his clothing, completely spent. "I should go soon," he said.
He then and there promised me he would do so. And he did.

The war thickened. Hitler was now engaging Stalingrad and
finding that a smashed city can be the hardest thing in the world
to take. But he was telling the world he would take it and stay in
it. Rommel was still going where he pleased in Libya. Malta was
defiant, though nearly pulverized from the air. Spitfires, for the
first time, began to engage the Luftwaffe over Malta. This helped.
The Germans said we couldn't get them there. They came from
the decks of the U.S.S. Wasp. And the spirit of the Maltese was
lifted immeasurably when His Majesty the King bestowed the
George Cross upon the island.

We kept on taking losses in the Pacific. The Exeter, Dorset-
shire and Cornwall were all sunk. Our small Far Eastern fleet had
been annihilated. The British aircraft carrier Hermes had been
sunk, as far away as Ceylon.

As the Americans would say, we were taking a shellacking.
Certainly our prestige was. A year had passed since we had lost
all our equipment at Dunkirk, and much of our heavy equipment
dispatched to the Far East had never got east of Suez.

Churchill stiffened hi the presence of all these horrors. His jaw
came out again. "We must hold on."

Churchill made an accounting of the war to his countrymen
after his first two years as Prime Minister. He said our reverses
had been greater than our gains. But he looked forward to better
days, and with good reason. American troops were pouring in, not
only to the Far East, but also into Northern Ireland and to Eng-
land too.

Earlier despondency had begun to clear. Fight was coming
back. During these months our own heavy bomber strength had
been growing. On May 30 soon after midnight, the Bomber Com-
mand had attacked the city of Cologne with more than one thou-
sand bombers. The Germans were beginning to get it back. It was
just a start. But it was the biggest air raid in history up to that
time. Winston personally sent his congratulations to the whole
Bomber Command on their wonderful feat of organization. Two

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 265

nights later they did it again, plastering Essen and the Ruhr, with
more than one thousand planes in the air.

But if we got ahead in one spot, we fell back somewhere else.
Rommel had launched Ms Afrika Korps attack. We lost Tobrak.
We had to pull back to El Alamein.

It was mid- June. Another talk between President Roosevelt
and Winston Churchill was called for. Winston took a very small
party this time. Its principal members were Sir Alan Brooke and
General Sir Hastings Ismay. We flew from the north of England
to the Potomac River in the Bristol, reaching Washington in
twenty-six hours.

Winston caused much amusement on the trip over. He was re-
laxed. He loved flight. He did not much care what he looked like.
This time he looked unbelievably ludicrous. He lay back in the
rear of the plane, seeming to occupy most of the space there,
absolutely flamboyant in baby blue siren suit and the gaudiest
dressing gown ever seen on an Englishman. He changed hats a
couple of times as the draughts seemed to change in the plane,
and chewed a six-inch cigar most of the way across the At-
lantic. It was better for me not to look at Mm.

The President was at the airport to meet the Prime Minister.
We went at once to the White House, and Winston sat down im-
mediately with his party and General George C. Marshall and
Lieutenant General Arnold.

The meetings were barely started when the heavy news came to
us that the British ships, containing armored vehicles to rein-
force our armies in Libya, had been sunk. As you wiH remember,
the Mediterranean was almost impassable, and supplies had to be
sent thousands of miles around the Cape of Good Hope, then
through the Suez Canal.

President Roosevelt looked trp at this news and, as if declaring
advantages he could see in a hand of wMst, he said: "I have a
number of Sherman tanks just being issued to our army. You
shall have them at once. We'll send them for you right away."
Without an instant's delay, without even waiting for Winston to
thank him or any of the admirals and generals to react, he picked
up a telephone at his side and issued the order then and there.

266 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

These tanks minus a single shipload which a U-boat got en-
abled us to drive the Germans back from El Alarneln.

This alone would have made the trip more than worth while.

Things got very rough for Churchill, the politician, in London.
While we were still in the United States, it was moved in the
House of Commons by Sir John Wardlaw Milne, a member of
Churchill's own party: "That this House while paying tribute to
the heroism and endurance of the armed forces of the Crown in
circumstances of exceptional difficulty, has no confidence in the
central direction of the war."

We were all stunned by this. I was especially pricked to dis-
cover that the seconder of the motion had been Admiral Sir Roger
Keyes, a great personal Mend of the Prime Minister's, certainly a
man who could comprehend the size of the problem Churchill
dealt with.

Everyone in the White House corps kept asking me what it
meant

"Does it mean they want to get rid of Winston?" In the Ameri-
can opinion, and that of the world, too, Mr. Churchill was the
principal director of the war. It was difficult for me to reply. I
could only say what I thought was the truth of it, that many in
the House of Commons were disaffected by our reverses in Libya.

The American newspapers had headlines hard to look at:

COMMONS DEMANDS CHURCHILL RETURN TO FACE ACCUSERS.

That was one. Here's another: CHURCHILL RETURNS TO SUPREME
POLITICAL CRISIS. A third: WELL CHURCHILL RESIGN?

This news was staggering to the Prime Minister and cut him
deeply. He thought the motion poorly timed in the extreme, while
he was representing his own country abroad. It made it most
awkward for him. Perhaps that was intended.

As is well known, Churchill replied at considerable length. The
"no confidence" motion, offered by Sir John Wardlaw Milne, was
defeated, 475 to 25.

June 11 was a day of momentous decision for Great Britain
and Russia. On that day Molotov and Churchill signed a treaty
providing for full collaboration between the two countries for
twenty years. One of the items of significance about this signing

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 267

was the fact that Churchill had been known for many years to be
most antagonistic toward Russia. It was clear in everything he
said, inside and outside the House. He hated their leaders and
loathed their principles.

With the signing, however, it seemed an opportune time for
the Prime Minister to see Marshal Stalin. Stalin wouldn't leave
Russia. You went to him.

We flew out of England on August 1st in a Liberator Com-
mando. It was piloted by an American, Captain Van de Kloot.
Its copilot was Captain 1. Ruggles.

Flying at this stage of the war, via Gibraltar and Cairo, was
far from safe.

It was still light when we took off from Gibraltar. We arrived
safely in Cairo, where Field Marshal Smuts was waiting. It was
their first meeting since the war began. It was also the first time I
had ever met this most remarkable and lovable man. Churchill
loved him beyond all other humans and felt toward him as he
might for Ms own father, were he still living then.

Smuts was in perfect health, very bouncy.

The High Command in Libya needed drastic change. Churchill
intended that the army should have a new start under new leaders.
In arriving at a decision so difficult, he relied on what he called
and what has since become the characterizing sentence that sums
up Churchill's full attitude regarding Smuts as a political and
military figure the "massive judgment** of the Field Marshal.

After a visit to El Alamein, General Alexander succeeded Gen-
eral Auchinleck, with General Montgomery given command under
Alexander of the famous 8th Army.

We went on then across the wastes of southern Persia, having
picked up our full complement for the Stalin talks. Accompany-
ing Churchill were Mr. Averell Hairiman, General Maxwell, com-
manding U.S. forces in Egypt, General Sir Archibald Wavell and
Air Marshal Tedder. We rested and refueled in the oriental capi-
tal of Teheran.

We reached Moscow in the early evening. The Moscow air-
field was crowded with dratiM Russians. There was a great deal
of mechanical smiling.

Molotov had a secret destination for us some miles from Mos-

268 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

cow. We got in cars and were driven off, myself close to the Old
Man.

I was struck by the width of the streets; some were four hun-
dred feet wide. What amazed me more was the speed of motor
vehicles in the city of Moscow itself. They went sixty or even
seventy miles an hour, screaming around curves. The streets were
nearly empty. Windows looked blank. Expressions on faces were
gawking and incapable of communication. As the motor cavalcade
passed by, the small groups that we would be near merely stared
at nothing, not the slightest bit interested in anything or anybody
around them. They were not even talking among themselves. They
seemed impervious to human approach of any kind.

Though we were surrounded with the most important men in
aH Russia except for Joe himself we were everywhere challenged
by soldiers. Outhouse and grounds were surrounded with armed
sentries. They stood on walls and on the roof and in windows. I
thought of going to church with the President in Washington.

Later I found how difficult it was to move about. You had to
make application by telephone and a period of thirty minutes al-
ways elapsed before any move could be made. The Russians seem
cosmically indifferent to bathrooms. We moved everywhere under
guard and escort and under the thrust of perpetual challenge,
even though Molotov was with us all the time.

At six that evening we left for the Kremlin. We passed seven
guards to get in. On entering, we then met members of the OGPU.
They followed us to the Marshal's room. Here we were separated
from Winston Churchill and taken to another room.

A few moments after we were seated, we were ushered out
again. Churchill had had his first row with Joe and was banging
down the corridors of the Kremlin looking neither to right nor
left. He struck a match on the Kremlin wall and still walking,
lighted a cigar, puffing angrily. Stalin had tried to crowd a de-
cision out of Churchill a little sooner than the Prime Minister
wanted to give it.

We went to the villa assigned to Churchill. The following day
the rest of our party arrived.

On Friday night the whole British Mission was invited to a

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 269

banquet at the Kremlin. I have attended hundreds of dinners and
banquets while serving Winston, but I never saw so much food
laid out anywhere in the world not even in Saudi Arabia, where
they once slaughtered five thousand sheep for Winston. There
was so much to eat you couldn't start: caviar soft or pressed,
wMtefish, salmon, sturgeon (pails of it), garnished herrings, dried
herrings, cold ham, whole hot hams, game suffocating in gondolas
of mayonnaise, salad payar, white mushrooms in sour cream,
forcemeat of game, eggplant meuniere, creme de Poularde, bath-
tubs of borsch, turkey, chicken, partridge, suckling lamb, suckling
pig, thirty desserts and ices, and a rack of liqueurs bigger than the
layout in New York's Astor Hotel bar.

The Russians ate everything and ate all the time. I'd heard of
this. Now I dived into it. But a short-rationed Englishman can
only have a good time for a few seconds at such a feast. My
stomach was small, and even in peacetime I was never a heavy
eater* I was soon through, very disappointed I could not do better.
My seat was directly in front of the two principals, Stalin wore a
kind of smock pulled together in the middle with a beautiful hand-
worked leather belt. He wore breeches and jackboots. This was in
sharp contrast to the military uniforms all around him. He was
having a fine time. The first spoon had hardly been sent on its
first mission into the bowls of vichysoisse when Joe was up toast-
ing people. He was very democratic in this little ritual He toasted
everybody on earth, one at a time. Then he would toast them all
over again, starting on the other side of the world and working
back. It took many hours. Then he toasted everybody at his own
table, then everybody at all the other tables. He moved around
from one table to another like a fiddle player in a gypsy restaurant
in Soho.

Dinner and toasting went on for several hours. About midnight
the party repaired to the champagne room where there were more
toasts. Winston had been a good sport for the first three or four
hours of this. But there was work to do. Many of the Russians
were drunk and singing, mistaking me for the "Minister from Scot-
land/' or for nearly anything. They didn't want to do any work.
Churchill became more and more ill at ease and kept Ms eye on
Stalin. Photographs were taken.

270 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

I saw Mr. Churchill whispering to Sir Alexander Cadogan, who
in turn spoke to an interpreter, a Mr. Pavlov, to convey to Mr.
Stalin the request that the Prime Minister wanted to see Stalin
alone, and now.

Joe Stalin would not hear of it. He dismissed the request and
the person of Pavlov with a shove and went on drinking. Churchill
was disgusted. He got up and strode out. Sir Alexander Cadogan
went with him. Naturally I did too.

When Stalin saw the British leaving the party, he did have the
courtesy to come to the door of the great chamber to say good
evening. Churchill was furious. There is a time when diplomats
must keep their temper most of the time. And there is a time
when it is mandatory for them to lose it. And now was the time.
Churchill's voice rose. He shook a finger at Pavlov, then shook
the other one almost in Joe Stalin's face and he told Pavlov to tell
Joe that if there was to be any "discussing," it better happen be-
fore the early part of Sunday morning as he (Churchill) and his
party were leaving for Cairo then whether anything was accom-
plished or not.

The next day Mr. Churchill was respectfully informed that
Marshal Stalin was most anxious to have a private visit with the
Prime Minister and would he be so kind as to come to the
Kremlin for dinner at 6:00 P.M. Churchill said he would.

We went through much of the same rigmarole as before.
Winston and I were alone this time, however. I was not allowed
to go in with him, when the Prime Minister was ushered into the
Marshal's private study. I said I would wait at the door; the
OGPU said I would not. Here we argued. I opened my coat and
showed my guns. Pavlov came up with a big man I recognized as
Molotov's special bodyguard whenever Molotov traveled abroad.
Pavlov was asked to find out what the trouble was. I said I would
no more budge from this location than he (pointing to Molotov's
bodyguard) would budge from the side of his charge in London.
It turned into a hell of a show. But I was as big as they were, a
free man, well armed, and very cross. I talked with great force and
unbelievable speed directly to the Russians, knowing that Pavlov
could not pick up everything I was saying, then emphasizing it
the more by crowding in while the amazed Pavlov was trying to

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 271

make me understood. Then I took out my guns, transferred them
to my side pockets and stood with back to door, facing them all
I stuck out my elbows. I looked tough. I can look very tough. I
looked as tough as them. I stood there till 2:00 A.M,

I did not like the Russians at all. But then I did not like all the
Englishmen who worked with and around Winston. Neither did
he, I am sure. But they were all unusual, energetic, morally brave.
Many of them were mental marvels. Lord Cherwell especially.
Cadogan was the coldest I encountered a real oyster. In the
Kremlin, with my nerves frayed, wondering why Winston was
being so long sequestered, dreading the worst and then running
into the austere Cadogan, I had thought the momentary fellowship
of a kindred soul on the same mission and in the same misery
would have extracted a little cheer. But Cadogan, though as
worried as I, was as silent as the Russians around us; mute as
Pavlov, cold as the Kremlin's masonry. I cannot this day recall
one single word that came out of this man.

That night in the Kremlin I'd have given a month's pay for a
smile from an Englishman but Cadogan was all that penetrated
my vigil and he has a look that can wither croupiers.

Suddenly the door opened and Churchill came out, smiling
broadly. We returned to the villa. Churchill had come up with
something he had gone down for. I never knew what it was. But
his artifice in being furious, and in showing his fury, had won
him a big point.

As we left, Winston pointed to something. It was the upper
part of one of the buildings in the grounds that had been destroyed
by the Germans. Scaffolding had been erected and a number of
women could be seen working with the men on the roof. Women
were in all the work groups I saw in Russia and worked clear
round the clock, with the men, on any rash job such as this repair.

We flew back to Teheran, where Churchill lunched with the
Shah of Persia. Then on to Cairo and twenty-four hours later, a
second visit to the troops at El Alamein. He spent the night in the
headquarters of General Alexander. He produced his prodigious
ten-gallon hat and also an umbrella. He went about with both, as

272 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

protection against the terrible sun, much to the amusement of the

troops.

Someone shouted, "There's Winston! hat, umbrella, cigar and
all!" One soldier, somewhat bolder than the others, directly asked
Mr. Churchill for a cigar. "Of course you shall have one," Winston
said at once, handing over a fresh, one.

He addressed the troops at El Alamein. He told them that the
tanks they should have received had been sent to the bottom.
Then he said that through the immediate reaction of President
Roosevelt, new tanks Shermans far more powerful than those
which were first sent were already arriving. This was cheered
witli great excitement.

Rommel at this time had Ms first big setback. He attacked the
southern flank of the Qattara depression. We were ready for it.

Back in London Churchill said this of Joe: "Stalin is an out-
standing personality of inexhaustible courage and willpower, di-
rect and even blunt in speech, with a sense of humor, cool wisdom,
and absence of illusions." He said that the Russians in general
did not think we had done enough for them, to take the weight
off them. They should have seen London. Or Singapore. Or the
fleet Or the North African coast we had just been to. I thought
what Churchill permitted himself to be quoted as saying about
Joe Stalin was more than generous. There were other comments
from the British as well as the Americans coming back from the
Kremlin that the Marshal would not have cared to hear. But I
can't set them down here. There would be a good many among us
who could also claim "absence of illusions."

A very large U.S. Mission came to London. In it were Admiral
King, Harry Hopkins, Ambassador Winant, Mr. William Bullitt,
and Admiral Stark. After about six weeks of heavy consultations,
satisfactory agreements were reached as to the further prosecution
of the war and Mr. Churchill had a big dinner for everybody at
Greenwich where they were met by the First Lord, Mr. A. V.
Alexander. It was a great and noisy affair. Everyone relaxed. The
First Lord entertained his visitors by playing the piano: well-
known melodies that Engjish-speaking people on both sides of
the Atlantic have been singing for a couple of centuries. Winston

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 273

tried to join in this. But while Churchill can undoubtedly make
speeches he definitely cannot sing.

In late October Mrs. Roosevelt arrived in England. Unfor-
tunately she was not accompanied by the President. The First
Lady was met by Their Majesties at Paddington, and on leaving
the station she received a hearty welcome from a great crowd in
and around the station. She stayed for awhile with Their Majesties
and, after the official visit, toured around London visiting bombed
areas and various women's services and organizations.

Mrs. Churchill went with her on several occasions. Mrs. Roose-
velt is a woman of inexhaustible energy and on many of these
journeys, her pace was too much for the Prime Minister's wife.
Weather made no difference to Mrs. Roosevelt. She had been
told that the weather would mostly be bad and the thing to do
was to ignore it. Since Mrs. Roosevelt had come to see things for
herself, she fully intended to do so, weather or no weather.

In changing generals in North Africa, Mr. Churchill's fore-
sight became manifest. Rommel was now beginning to retreat, a
retreat that took him, eventually, out of Libya, Cyrenaica, Tripoli-
tania and Tunis with the loss of his army and his equipment.

Hitler was not yet desperate but things were not going the way
he had predicted the year before. Or even the month before.

Because of our intensified bombing, Germany announced a
form of reprisal to be called the "Baedeker raids." This merely
meant that the German Luftwaffe would pick out towns and small
cities and wage war on noncombatant populations without mercy.

Agonies like this were forgotten when greater news like the in-
vasion of North Africa and Morocco could be announced. The
incredible armada from America had traversed the Atlantic
837 ships without the loss of a ship! The impact of this would
not be immediately felt but the political and psychological impact
was instantaneous. Hitler ordered the occupation of the southern
half of France. Meanwhile Admiral Darlan arrived in Africa and
put himself at the disposal of the Free French authorities.

On November 27, Darlan called upon the French fleet to come
to North Africa, or to put in at British ports, A large number
responded. It now became apparent that Darlan wanted to assume

274 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

power, for he soon elected himself Chief of State and later on
Leader of the French Empire.

Questions were at once put to the House of Commons as to
what the British position vis-a-vis Darlan was. They were never
answered. Darlan was assassinated in Algiers. It was Christmas

Eve.

As the 8th Army neared Tripoli, Allied troops began to occupy
most of the territory of North Africa. It was time for another
meeting, one that would, it was hoped, effectuate what Roosevelt
had been insisting upon: unconditional surrender.

For this meeting the Prime Minister, accompanied by Sir
Charles Portal and Mr. Harriman, left England by plane in ut-
most secrecy. We arrived at Casablanca the following morning,
January 12, 1943. The Allied authorities had commandeered a
large hotel, the Angfa, for our use, together with its attached
villas. The whole layout was on top of a hill.

Barbed wire surrounded the place and American sentries pa-
trolled everywhere. The Prime Minister was housed in a villa just
previously vacated by members of the German Armistice Com-
mission and evidence of their quick getaway was everywhere. The
oven was still on in the kitchen and there was a burnt roast in it.
Unopened boxes of cigars were about.

The Chiefs of Staff of both England and the United States went
to work right away. By now we had become pretty good at this
sort of thing. But after a few days it became clear to all that some-
thing was wrong. An important cog somewhere needed some oil.
It was the French more specifically the friction between General
Giraud who had become High Commissioner, and General de
Gaulle whose position, while indeterminate for Allied purpose,
was not sufficiently eminent to suit him. Efforts were made to
bring these two patriots together. They failed. Churchill got very
fidgety. He could never stand the unsmiling chill of de Gaulle any-
how. It was not new.

The friction which began some time after de Gaulle came to
England, I feel, was the outcome of his continued demand to be
placed in charge of some form of attack against the enemy. De
Gaulle appeared during these terrible days to resent any action
which did not coincide with his wishes. He was probably suffering

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 275

inside in a most awful way: disappointed, only half recognized.
Sour people never understand why others don't Mke them, and if
they also have a fine record, their resentments can border on the
neurotic. De Gaulle had no personality whatsoever. And he was
most brutally brusque. The Germans could also be most bru-
tally brusque Rommel and Kesserling to mention two but there
was something almost picturesque, something at least superbly
military about those two. But de Gaulle somehow never looked
like a man of war. He was colorless and humorless. He was not
even a second-rate leader in terms of those iodefinables that draw
and hold other men.

It was evident following the invasion of North Africa and the
escape of General Giraud, that the time was coming when de
Gaulle could come more into the picture. However, there existed
considerable bad feeling between the two generals, most of it on
de Gaulle's side. De Gaulle had very few true feelings of any
kind. He was a grouch and a sorehead, a bitterly disappointed
idealist with a far more personal concern about what was to hap-
pen to his conception of France than what was to happen to
France itself.

He was now afraid that Giraud would take his place with the
armies as well as with the Allies. De Gaulle, to me, always seemed
more concerned over de Gaulle than he did over France. This may
be unjust but it did not seem so in military conferences where he
resembled a disaffected woman whose dog had taken a poor de-
cision in the field trials.

The two generals were brought together at Casablanca. Giraud
was the guest of President Roosevelt, de Gaulle the guest of Sir
Winston. I was called upon by Churchill, the day de Gaulle arrived
at our villa, to keep watch around the place so that no person
could interfere with what the Prime Minister told me would be
"long and difficult conversations/*

After what indeed seemed a long and difficult conversation,
Winston told me that he and de Gaulle would be walking across
the lawns to the President's villa. I do not yet quite know what
the dodge was; perhaps some sort of "change partners" reshuffle.
In any case, as we left our villa and made toward the President's,
Mr. Murphy, Roosevelfs aide, left the presidential villa with

276 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

General Giraud, both parties meeting midway as if by prearrange-
ment The prearrangement had not taken in de Gaulle, who
seemed to crest up when he saw his own brother general approach-
ing. He looked with quizzical hostility at both Winston and me,
then rammed Ms long legs into the earth like a stork and stopped
walking. He just stood there in a bony sulk, like a balking horse
determined to bedevil its driver. But Churchill is a much better
sulker than de Gaulle is. Churchill can be. a champion sulker. He
jabbed de Gaulle sharply with his thumb right in the General's
backside and reinforced this indelicate gesture with a shove that
set the angry Frenchman in motion again. "Allez! Allez!" Church-
ill snarled in his horrid French, and he stuck his own bulldog face
right into General de Gaulle's. Maybe it was a rapprochement, but
there was no French kissing about this one, I can testify.

That night, retiring late, Churchill stopped at my door. "Sorry
to have kept you up so late, Thompson, but we have to marry
these two fellows somehow!"

It happened. And right there.

Churchill broke a lot of the local rules at Casablanca, going
down each evening to the ocean, often for a bath. Once trudging
back up the hill to his villa, we encountered a large group of
American sailors. One of them had a guitar. They recognized
Winston at once and stopped and began to talk with him. He liked
this. "Aren't you going to give me a tune?" he asked, pointing to
the guitar. "You bet, sir," they said at once. And they sang several
choruses around us, Churchill trying to get into it somewhere.

We picked up our jeep and the driver made a wrong turn. He
drove us around to the far side of the compound where we were
compelled to stop, owing to the barbed wire in our path. Winston
could see his own villa from here. Looking at the barbed wire, he
turned to me. "We can climb over that, Thompson." He began
pushing down the wire and started to swing his leg over. There
was a click of a rifle, and a shout of "Halt!" Guns from four differ-
ent places were leveled at us. I shouted it was Churchill. The
sentries came down to see. They were disgusted. They cursed and
swore. They should not have done this. But then, neither should
the Prime Minister have ignored the meaning of the barbed wire.
We were extremely lucky not to have been fired on.

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 277

Later, Churchill had to visit the French battleship Jean BarL
It was being refitted in Casablanca harbor. The Preach saiors
really gave Churchill a cold shoulder. I could not blame them.
How could it be otherwise? He was the man who had shelled their
fleet, when we were supposedly Allies.

The Casablanca Conference was coming to a close with "un-
conditional surrender" being written in as one of the terms of the
end of fighting. Tripoli was captured by the 8th Army while the
meetings were still in progress. Churchill and Roosevelt took
leave of each other again. We packed and got in a plane for Cairo.

We toured back across North Africa. At Tripoli Winston spoke
to the troops of the 8th Army and, in Ms simple imperishable
English, he said: "After this war is over, it will be quite sufficient
to say, when he is asked, 'What did you do?' to reply, 1 marched
with the 8th Army.' " What a roar! What a man!

Churchill was suddenly taken ill with pneumonia in the third
week of February. Five other members of his staff also came
down the same day, with influenza, myself among them. We must
have brought the germ back from Africa. Winston was ill for
nearly a month but his recuperation was hastened, I am sure, by
the good news that kept coming out of Africa. The American
armies and our own gradually were closing in on the Germans
from all sides, causing the enemy to retreat toward Tunis. The
Germans had to give up the Mareth Line. On May 12 the cam-
paign in North Africa came to an end, with the surrender of over
one hundred and fifty thousand prisoners, including their com-
mander, General von Arnim.

We went aboard the Queen Mary for our next trip to Wash-
ington. President Roosevelt seemed glad to see us all again and
to greet new faces. He was very cordial to me as usual. I renewed
my pleasant association with Mike Reilly and Gus Gennerich of
the White House Secret Service staff, while the Chiefs of Staff sat
down to decide how to deal with Japan. This took twelve days of
conferring. Then we were in motion again, this time traveling by
flying boat to Newfoundland, Gibraltar, and across to Algiers.

Our stay here was short and intensive, for Churchill had one
meeting after another. Mr. Eden joined Mr. Churchill. Others
present, including our own generals, were fee two American gen-

278 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

erals Marshall and Eisenhower, and four French Generals: de
Gaulle, Giraud, George and Catroux. "The cross I have to bear,"
said Churchill, coming out of a meeting with the French one
afternoon, "is the cross of Lorraine," meaning, of course, de
Gaulle.

We were delayed a day in our official plans to get back to Eng-
land and there has been speculation all over the world that this
delay saved Winston Churchill's life.

A civil aircraft, flying to England from Lisbon a plane similar
to ours was shot down over our route and at about the same
time the day before. One of the passengers was the famous actor,
Leslie Howard, whom Winston had seen perform many times and
some of whose films he owned and frequently showed in his
private projection theatre at Chartwell. It occurred to us all at the
same time: Was that plane mistaken for ours? We were actually
supposed to be at that spot at that time and even at that altitude.

Before the House of Commons Churchill dealt with his visits
to Washington and North Africa and described Stalingrad and
Tunis as the greatest military disasters which had ever befallen
Germany in all the wars she had ever made.

Preparations for our move across the Mediterranean were fast
approaching completion. Sicily was being bombed daily and sev-
eral small islands off the Cape Bon Peninsula were captured as
loading and transfer points. His Majesty the King visited North
Africa, covering much the same ground we ourselves had just
been over.

Sicily was invaded on July 10. There was a most unfortunate
high run of American casualties due to a mistake in signals and
premature firing, with many of the paratroopers killed by their
own gunfire. But the island was taken nonetheless, and a few days
later, both the President and the Prime Minister appealed to the
Italian people to throw over Mussolini, who, the message said, was
the cause of their betrayal. On July 28 Mussolini resigned. The
King of Italy took over supreme command, with Marshal Badoglio
as Prime Minister.

I reminded Winston of that day, far back now, wheo w$ had
stood together on the terrace of the Semiramis Hotel in Cairo,
when the information had been brought to him there that an

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 279

Italian General called Badoglio was moving into Libya ostensibly
with an army of "agrarians." "We will have to come back here
sometime," he had said. Now, he shook his head slowly, in bitter
recall, thinking back to that moment. He had been only forty-
seven years old on that trip.

The first big crack in the Axis partnership had come.

On September 3, the British 8th Army invaded Calabria, al-
most unopposed. Calabria is the toe of the boot.

On that day too, though it was not published to the world, an
energetic warrior signed a secret agreement for the Allies, secur-
ing the signature of Badoglio for Italy, culminating in uncondi-
tional surrender of the Italian forces. This was General Dwight
Eisenhower.

Italy's days of trial and turmoil were far from over. The Ger-
mans had no intention of allowing Italy to be so easily taken.
German troops occupied Rome. The German press described
Italy's surrender as "open treason."

The Italians now appeared desirous of helping the Allies.
Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, Commander-in-Chief , Mediter-
ranean, called upon the Italians to sail their ships to Allied ports.
The Italians did so. Italian ships created a line over five miles in
length when they surrendered.

You remember the painful but steady trek up the spine of
Italy by General Mark Clark to Salerno, Cassinp, Rome. The
U.S. and the British, with a few unforgettable Gurkhas, went
up together till Kesselring, beaten down everywhere, gave up. The
Allies eventually triumphed here the first unconditional sur-
render of German troops, numbering just a million.

An Anglo-American Conference at Quebec was called. This
time the Prime Minister took his wife and his daughter Mary.
Sir John Anderson and Anthony Eden joined the Premier at a
later date.

There was the customary load of meetings but these wore a
pleasure, not only because the war was beginning to quiet down,
but because the War Cabinets were meeting at the famous CM-
teau Frontenac Hotel. I have never seen a place more beautiful. I
was sorry when it broke up but the schedules of both Prime
Ministers were very crowded. They said goodbye to each other

280 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

here, and very soon Mr. Churchill was at Hyde Park again, week-
ending with the President.

We stayed several days. I hated Hyde Park. There is no peace
there. It was penetrable from a security point of view. There were
other aggravations. Roosevelts always became superactive in the
country. The President wanted to fish. Or he wanted to visit his
own museum. Or Mrs. Roosevelt wanted everyone on a picnic.
When the Roosevelts want something, they get it. They are worse
than Winston himself. -Day and night I was on the alert, chasing
over the damn acreage with a creel on my hip or an abominable
hot dog in midair or a whole hamper of sandwiches on my head,
and mustard on my trousers; festooned with cameras, aswarm
with Roosevelt grandchildren, myself not infrequently challenged
by unfamiliar American police (this was the worst!), and a bad
bed at night right under a revolving floodlight.

By God, I will take Chequers in the blitz to a Roosevelt week-
end-with-the-children.

Anyone could walk right into Hyde Park. Millions were doing
so then. It was becoming a sightseer's shrine. Searchlights were
rigged in tree boughs, poles, ridges, roofs. The place looked like
a stalag after a break at midnight. Daytimes it was a sort of bucolic
Brighton with all of America's underprivileged children deter-
mined that every grownup was Santa Claus.

We then went to Niagara Falls where the press, who knew of
our visit, awaited us in force. Cameramen surrounded us so
thickly it was not possible to walk. Winston, with his wife Clemen-
tine and daughter Mary, stood hi a hundred poses but there were
never enough. One of the newsmen asked in a loud voice, upon
learning that Churchill had seen the Falls in 1900: "Do the Falls
look the same to you as when you first saw them so many years
ago, sir?" Many tittered but all waited.

Winston looked out at the mighty chasm as if giving his ques-
tioner the compliment of a considered answer, then said: "I'm
not absolutely certain as to the Falls, but the principle remains
unchanged!" Everyone loved it and laughed.

We were to have a few days of rest and fishing in Canada, ar-
ranged for us by Prime Minister Mackenzie King and through the

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 281

dkect invitation of Colonel F. W. Clarke. We went to Snow Lake,
renowned for its fishing.

Churchill entered into this sport as into anything else and his
excitement was intensified because of his proximity to water again.
We got up at five and were fed and fishing by six. It was cold
and marvelously exhilarating, just the thing the Old Man needed.
During our stay he had varied luck, catching a number of fair-
sized trout, but no records of any kind. Sir Charles Portal and
Field Marshal Sk Alan Brooke also fished and had the most suc-
cess. But I landed the biggest one, a beautiful 3 Vz -pound rainbow.
As a reward, Colonel Clarke allowed a Royal Marine and myself
to go out in a canoe.

I had never been in one and did not know they were tricky.
Neither did the Marine. We paddled off shakily but happily and
began to fish, but one of the hooks got caught in some pickerel
weed and we made the mistake of trying to get the hook loose,
both of us leaning over the same side of the canoe. We of course
disappeared at once and came up again, plastered with bottom,
weeds and humiliation. Churchill roared and sat down on a stump,
the better to enjoy the spectacle we made. Our holiday was over
too soon but it restored the Prime Minister.

We flew to Halifax and boarded H.M.S. Renown. As we neared
the English coast the Prime Minister, with some of his secretaries
and myself, computed the total mileage for journeys taken since
the war started. What do you think it was? One hundred and
eleven thousand miles and fifty-four thousand of them by air.

The prelude to the Teheran Conference was just concluding at
Moscow, where Mr. Anthony Eden, Mr. Cordell Hull and Mr.
Molotov were meeting. The main meeting was scheduled for late
November. We left Plymouth on the Renown and went to Malta.
Here there was a delay. The American Secret Service agents, who
had come on ahead of President Roosevelt, were far from satisfied
with the security arrangements in Teheran. It was suggested the
conference take place right here at Malta. Churchill was agree-
able. Obviously President Roosevelt would have been most relieved.
Stalin said no. We went ahead, this time by plane, to Cako. Here
Churchill became very agitated when the President was some
hours overdue, and was noticeably relieved when Ms plane's safe

282 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

arrival was announced. Meantime Generalissimo and Madame
Chiang Kai-shek had arrived and had had a couple of preliminary
talks with Winston. It was Chiang Kai-shek's first conference, and
with Japan figuring as one of the principal subjects under dis-
cussion, Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten was present

The President arrived and work began in earnest Roosevelt
does not stay up late to work. He works all day. Churchill was
anxious to get through this part and get on to Teheran. Roosevelt
didn't seem in any hurry to get to Iran, nor to enjoy it once he
got there.

Madame Chiang Kai-shek impressed us all. She was certainly
a prime factor in the discussions attended by her husband in
which his judgment was sought. She also acted as his interpreter.
It was plain to see that not only was she a smart, well-dressed and
attractive woman but also a worthy representative with her hus-
band, able to put forth the claims of China. The delegates were
attentive to her, affected not only by her wide knowledge and her
tact, but by the manner in which she so forthrightly stated compli-
cated situations in simple language.

It is interesting to note that while these virtues of Madame
Chiang Kai-shek were manifest to all, they did not appeal to
President Roosevelt. He simply could not stand this lady, dislik-
ing her even from their first meeting. No reason was ever attrib-
uted; just one of those deeply felt yet inexplicable personality
antipathies. As to what she might have felt toward the American
President, she was throughout inscrutable. Except for this an-
tipathy, the Chinese representatives might have had wider influ-
ence than the Cairo meeting afforded. They would almost certainly
have participated in the Teheran Conference.

We got a disturbing report that an attack on the Prime Minister
and possibly on the President too was being planned and might
be expected to erupt before the party had met with Stalin.

We went ahead with the plans for the conference anyhow, not
telling the principals of the flash that had come to us. We left
Cairo by plane on November 27 and arrived at Teheran without
incident. We were met there by the British Minister, Sir Reader
Bullard, and Major General A. Shelby* the officiating Cominander-
in-Chiel

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 283

Then we started for the Legation by the most unusual route.
For security reasons, we traveled right across fields, scoured be-
forehand for land mines. We were escorted by armored cars. As
we approached the center of Teheran many people were on the
street corners. Some got too close and got knocked away. All
entrances to the British Legation were guarded by troops. Many
more troops were quartered in the grounds. But the measures
taken still seemed to me inadequate.

Winston had heard his life was threatened here. He was very
excited, even pleased. He looked into everyone's face with the
happiest sort of suspicion. Our information was now a bit more
exact German secret agents, about sixty of them, had been para-
chuted into the desert country just south of Teheran, in two drops,
during the previous two nights and were concealed, disguised,
armed and supplied with plans of our intended movements. Many
of them were caught by our own agents under command of Col-
onel Joseph Spencer as they floated to earth. Spencer nabbed the
leader, let him set up shop at the point of rendezvous. In came
the others, one by one, not knowing there was a British gun
trained on their leader. It was a good roundup but we didn't get
them all. And so the tension remained.

Most of us felt displeasure at many of the measures adopted
for security, particularly as they dealt with the problem of mov-
ing a number of conference members from one location to an-
other.

The American Embassy where the President was to stay was
approximately one and a half miles from the British Legation.
The Soviet Embassy practically adjoined the Legation. In view of
the threat, Stalin invited President Roosevelt to be his guest and,
following his acceptance and his removal there, the security prob-
lem eased somewhat.

On Sunday, November 28, the first session commenced. It was
most noticeable and very striking to see Russian officers in full
uniform, looking very smart, on duty at the entrance to the Soviet
Embassy. As the various delegates arrived, military salutes in the
British style were given to them by the Russian officers. This was
a great difference from the salute given while in Moscow at a

284 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

previous conference. The atmosphere at the conference was most
cordial There seemed an air of real hope.

The following day was the "Stalingrad Sword Day." Churchill
was most dignified and impressive when he presented a steel
sword to the Marshal. So were the words: "Marshal Stalin, I have
a command from His Majesty King George VI to present you,
for transmission to the city of Stalingrad, this sword of honor, the
design of which His Majesty himself approved. This blade bears
the inscription, To the steel-hearted citizens of Stalingrad/ a gift
from George VI in token of homage of the British peoples."

Stalin seemed very moved by this and took it with grace. I had
not seen this in him before. He smiled with quiet pleasure, lifted
the sword to Ms lips, and in absolute silence kissed the scabbard,
then handed the sword to Marshal Voroshilov, the hero of Stalin-
grad.

The conclusion of the Cairo and Teheran Conferences came on
a happy note. Field Marshal Smuts, on his way home to South
Africa, called upon the Prime Minister in Cairo. The Premier was
overjoyed at seeing his old friend, and in the evening they both
dined with President Roosevelt

Then it was all over. The President flew away to America the
day after. Winston now hoped to spend a night or two as guest of
General Dwight Eisenhower and then visit troops in Italy.

Something happened. Too much work for too long, then a sud-
den letdown. He seemed to be bone tired and became listless. He
seemed anxious to get to General Eisenhower's headquarters, to
get down on the ground again. We weren't allowed to land at
Tunis airport immediately. Finally we came down on a small field
many miles away. General Eisenhower and several of his staff
officers were there waiting.

On seeing the Prime Minister alight from the plane, I was struck
by his appearance and mentioned it to Lord Moran, the Premier's
physician. I thought he looked ill. Lord Moran thought he looked
tired.

However, on arrival at the White House in Tunis where he was
to stay, he went to bed at once. He was found to have a tempera-
ture.

This went higher as time passed. Undoubtedly he was develop-

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 285

ing some illness. I was asked to take a turn during the night in
watching him. I suggested covering the whole night for him, some-
thing I was more accustomed to do. At eleven o'clock I took up
this long vigil.

Lord Moran had instructed me to listen to the tempo of the
Prime Minister's breathing. He told me if any change came in this
tempo, to call him at once. I sat outside the bedroom door where
I could hear very distinctly the Prime Minister's fast breathing.
About 3:00 A.M., the sound ceased. I crept into the room. All
was silent.

My heart came up into my mouth, for now I was at his bed-
side. Not a sound could I hear. I feared the worst. I thought he
had slipped off quietly while in a high fever. I leaned down and
listened very intently. At last I was rewarded by an almost in-
audible yet regular intake of breath. Slower exhales now, too.

I cannot remember during my whole lifetime a moment like
this. I slipped out and informed Lord Moran of the change. After
visiting the bedside he said, "He is breathing better now. You were
quite right to call me."

I went back and sat in the room, still as possible. Somewhat
later Churchill rose up, then stood fully upright. I spoke softly.
He said he was looking about for his sleeping tablets. They had
been discreetly removed. He seldom used them. He looked at me
with heavy eyes, weary with sickness, and asked me rather piti-
fully for the tablets. I felt so sorry for him, I evaded his question.
I was relieved to see him walk back to his bed. After he had
returned to it he said to me:

"Thompson, I am tired out, body, soul, and spirit."

I answered him: "No sir. Not spirit, sir. You have had a most
strenuous tune. I hope you will be able to rest a little more now
the conferences are ended."

He lay back a moment or two with his eyes closed. Then he
opened them and looked at me. "Yes, I am worn out, but all is
planned and ready." I did not know what he meant by this and
grew fearful. A strange light had come into his eyes and he looked
through the window into the mystic night. Glistening on the hori-
zon line, miles away, was the marble finger of a minaret pointing

286 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

to the sky. It looked ancient, immortal, almost supernatural.
Winston was looking at it too, I think.

"What is this place?"

"It is Tunis, sir. We are with General Eisenhower."

"Tunis? Tunis that is Carthage. The ruins of Carthage are
close by. The sound of the Romans and Hasdrubal." He got part
way up on Ms pillows by using his elbows. "What better place
could I die than here? Here in the ruins of Carthage?"

"Don't say that, sir!" I pleaded with him. "Everyone in the
world needs you. Even your enemies. And England needs you."

He sighed deeply, fell down on the bed again and went off to
sleep.

At eight, Lord Moran and his staff took over. I learned that
the Prime Minister's physician had not been idle. Nurses and
specialists began to arrive like magic. They flew in from all over.
General Eisenhower had a whole laboratory put at our disposal.

Churchill was terribly ill, close to death, but the critical peak
had been reached and passed as I sat there in his room; as he
passed, for those few moments, from lucid thought to a happy and
strange transport of hallucination that saw him dead in Cartha-
ginian ruins. Gloom hung over the villa. All members of his party
stood about, waiting for the posting of bulletins or for verbal re-
assurances from the doctors and nurses.

Then a wonderful thing happened. Mrs. Churchill arrived. Her
sudden appearance at his bedside gave him great comfort. From
then on, he started to come back.

My colleague on this trip, Sergeant Cyril Davies of Scotland
Yard, and I continued our security duties, patrolling around the
villa many times a day; many times an hour. Great was my sur-
prise, when after his convalescence was well advanced but before
he was about on his feet, Churchill looked up at me and said
cheerfully: "I saw you and your colleague carrying on just the
same while I was ill, Thompson. It was pleasing and comforting
to see you pass and repass the windows."

These little mentions have great meaning.

It was decided he could go to Marrakesh to complete Ms rest
Great care was taken on this journey as to height and weather

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 287

and an RAF doctor, with special oxygen apparatus, accompanied
the party.

We flew at about seven thousand feet. As the journey progressed,
and we were making a large detour to avoid the Atlas Mountains,
Mr. Churchill seemed to sense this detour. He complained of the
extra time it would take, said he felt fine, and insisted on the more
direct route, over the Atlas Mountains.

When he insists on these things, they get done. Those in attend-
ance upon him all opposed this idea, but he had his way. We
increased the altitude slowly, one thousand feet at a time, at half
hour intervals, till we were going over the peaks or through the
high passes. The doctors kept checking his pulse and breathing.
On being told by them that he was all right, he roared with gusto,
"Of course I'm all right! I don't need to be told this! I'm an-
nouncing it!"

But on arrival he was exhausted and went to bed straight off.
So he remained for a few days, later on sitting out in the sun-
shine in a most beautiful grove of orange and lemon trees. He
went on with his paperwork as usual and began having a large
number of people come visit him.

A very high tower formed a part of the building in which the
Prime Minister slept. It was reported to him that a most remarkable
view could be had from the top of this tower. Churchill insisted upon
being carried up it. So we improvised a sort of chair with jutting
handles. It was very difficult to maneuver this chair around the
steep corners of the ascent, the architects of this Moorish place
not having made much room for it. And it was terribly tiring,
though both my colleague and myself were unusually strong and
in perfect condition. But we did it willingly enough and were
happy to do anything that would hurry his recovery or make him
happy.

As he got stronger, he wanted more and more to get about
into the mountains and foothills. Picnics were being held daily in
various places nearby, all picturesque spots. On one of these
picnics Lord Beaverbrook, who had flown out from England es-
pecially to be with Winston during his convalescence, accom-
panied us. Winston was very fond of His Lordship.

A very large party attended this one. It was a glorious day. We

288 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

came to a small plateau near a bridge. Below us, one hundred
feet perhaps, a wild stream splashed through rocks in a rough
gorge In the mountain's side. You know about Churchill and
moving water. After lunch, Churchill, who had been peering down
at this cataract and listening to the challenge of its plangent sound
as It came up to us, expressed his intention of descending.

Lord Moran, who had done so much to bring Churchill back
to health so quickly, demurred. But the Prime Minister said he
felt strong enough. And down he went, carefully keeping to the
path. It was a dangerous path, being cut out of the cliffside some
centuries before, from the looks of it. He went right to the spot
where the water foamed and pounded through the side of the cliff.

It was finally time to start up again. I went ahead of Mr.
Churchill, instructing him to hold on to me. Our progress was
very slow. Up above, our situation was being studied by the
others. I got behind Winston and pushed, but this did not seem
very appropriate and didn't solve the problem. He was just too
tired out and too heavy. And though I could have physically
picked him up and carried him on level ground or even up a
smooth incline, it was not possible on this precipitous cliffside.

Suddenly a woman called down to us. It was Lady Diana Duff
Cooper. She with her husband came hurrying down to meet us,
Lady Diana carrying the large tablecloth which had been used for
the picnic. She suggested we put it round the Prime Minister and
use it as a rope, Sergeant Davies on one end and me on the other.

So, amid general amusement, that is the way we got Winston
Churchill back to the top without causing him much unnecessary
exertion. And so back to the villa.

The day came when Lord Moran thought the Prime Minister
had sufficiently recovered to be able to return home. He cautioned
against flying and restricted the return to one flight only, from
Marrafcesh to Gibraltar. Here we went on board the King George V.
In this fine ship our journey home was uneventful. Mr. Churchill
took it easy. He lived in the Admiral's cabin on the bridge. On
this journey lie did not once visit the cinema the only time in
my long years with him when he put aside this temptation and
instead walked daily and for hours about the bridge and the decks.
This was good for him.

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 289

On several occasions, when touring the mighty ship, consider-
able amusement was caused by the problem of getting the Prime
Minister up the various gangways. It was like the picnic table-
cloth and the gorge, only this time there was a sergeant of the
Royal Marines with his shoulder heaving powerfully at Churchill's
rear. The Prime Minister saw the funny side of this and joined the
roars and cheers and the happy grins of the men as the ladders
and inclines, one by one, were ascended.

Back in London, rested, Churchill was all action again. By the
end of February, he warned the House of Commons and Eng-
land that German air retaliation would be terrible. He warned of
new forms of air attack, alluding to plotless aircraft and rockets.
Some scoffed at the warnings. Churchill's life is crowded with
records of men who scoffed at his warnings only to turn into the
face of the very horrors he had predicted.

In the same war review Mr. Churchill referred to Poland. He
reported he had raised the Polish question with Marshal Stalin at
Teheran, and that Stalin had replied he wanted to see created "a
strong, unified, independent Poland." The Premier reminded the
House that we English had never guaranteed a particular frontier
line to Poland. "The British view in 1919," he stated, "stands
expressed in the so-called Curzon Line which attempted to deal
with this problem."

In view of the decisions taken at the Yalta Conference, this
statement has importance and refutes claims that Mr. Churchill
had let the Poles down.

But we were at the meeting of waters the opaque waters of
gloom and the shimmering waters of our next struggle.

We were gathering our strength for D-Day. Five years before,
in 1939, there could be no question but that Goering's Luftwaffe
was the strongest air force in the world. Through the midyear of
1943, the Germans had had their own way for two years and a
half in the air. But now the challenge was being more equally met
in direct engagement. German bombing squadrons were meas-
urably depleted. Their peak force of first-line fighters was not
above three thousand. In 1944 one thousand German planes were
destroyed in January and February alone. Essen and Schweinfurt
were gratifyingly reduced from the air. From an air point of view,

290 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

in the quoted opinion of the Prime Minister, the week of February
20-26 was "the most decisive of the war."

At this time we could not of course see how enormously our
advantage would grow, but by the end of the war, for every ton
of aerial bombs British cities had taken from the Germans, the
Germans had received 315 tons. Three hundred and fifteen to
one. The American contribution here, plus the Canadian, as well
as token assistance from the Free Poles and occasional help from
the Free French, is naturally a huge part of this story. Of interest
to Americans is this: As of January 1, 1945, German plane losses
were 51,858; U.S. plane losses, all fronts, 17,790.

When Churchill recovered enough to work full days again back
in London, he, as Prime Minister, together with his Chiefs of
Staff, had to stand up against an increasing barrage of demands
for "the Second Front." In reality, both a second and a third front
were already in being. Slogans were chalked up all over the city
on boards and pavements demanding the Second Front and the
suspense grew each day, seeming to follow the fantastic advances
being made by our (then) Allies, the Russians.

Churchill of course saw these scribbled instructions all the
time. On one occasion he turned to me, more musingly than in
irritation, and said: "Yes, we will start the Second Front the
minute we are ready. But we will not throw thousands of lives
away on any project until the time is ripe. Then our losses, by.
the careful preparations made now and the restraint shown
shall not be too heavy, God willing." He seemed to be speaking to
all of England, all the world. And Ms eyes filled.

We went on a mad sequence of visits to docks. Do you know
about the enormous concrete caissons? I am sure you do, except
for one thing: you have no idea how enormous they were! Un-
believable. These were being built now in many places, and were
new to warfare. These dramatic improvisations of artificial harbors
were to make the D-Day landings possible, for the troops were
going to breach a bare coast, as you now know.

Churchill was all about, with me hanging onto his coattails. All
his friskiness was back, a disease with him now, but not of attri-
tion more of overstitnulation.

Hundreds of blockships and concrete caissons, constructed in

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 291

as many places on the British coast, east, south, and west, were
towed through the Channel in dead of night, floated to location,
and there sunk. They created breakwaters, floating pierheads,
pontoon causeways. Troop carriers of all kinds could bring in
combat units and beach them, it was hoped, in calm or nearly
calm water.

By the end of March we'd been to Newbury, Tidworth and the
Winchester areas with the tireless, sternly cheerful Eisenhower
with whom Winston was increasingly impressed. After inspecting
a huge parade of U.S.A. paratroopers, Mr. Churchill and General
Eisenhower attended a large military exercise where the General
showed the new bazooka and American carbine to the Prime
Minister. It was suggested that they fire at a target. You cannot
ever suggest such a thing to Mr. Churchill without his at once get-
ting to it. He loves a contest. The troops gathered round by hun-
dreds. General Eisenhower, General Bradley and Mr. Churchill
stood in a row and all took aim with carbines on targets ahead.
Mr. Churchill stood up very well against the younger men. He
also fired several rounds with the bazooka, a gun which interested
him enormously. He addressed a great concentration of American
trooops at Winchester and reminded them they were occupying
barracks that had been the home of famous British regiments for
more than fifty years. The troops loved the Prime Minister but,
from the looks on their faces, they had never heard of the regi-
ments referred to.

After this we came right back to town. Churchill in a broadcast
to all the people, spoke of the approaching struggle, and of the
gigantic preparations being made; of the visible strength in the
mighty U.S. army that was forming and toughening. "There wiM
be false rumors," he said, "feints and many dress rehearsals. We
may also ourselves be the object of new forms of attack from the
enemy. But Britain can take it. n

And he spoke of the rebuilding of English homes.

SHAEF was getting into its stride. Churchill visited it con-
stantly, consulting with those in charge of the armies that were
going to punch into France. SHAEF was situated on the outskirts
of London, in ideal surroundings except for the necessary brick
wall all round. Secret telephones were installed and links could

292 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

be made with Washington and Moscow. Direct contact was in
service with the army within a very short period after the land-
ing in Normandy. They had their own secret radio wave lengths
which enabled them to contact military chiefs and even bombers
in flight in various parts of Europe.

General Sir Frederick Morgan was the man appointed to be in
charge of the British and American Joint Planning Staff whose
one great job was the invasion of Europe. At this time he actually
was SHAEF.

Ceaseless meetings were held with Prime Ministers of the Com-
monwealth: Mr. Mackenzie King, Mr. Curtin, Mr. Fraser, Field
Marshal Smuts, Sir Godfrey Huggins. It was agreed and an-
nounced that after the war a world organization to maintain peace
and security should be set up.

The days were whirling past. "D" Day was near. Three days
were spent in the south of England, visits being made to the docks
at Southampton and Portsmouth. We went aboard fast motorboats
here. On every side were landing craft of every kind. We were
later shown piers which were to form part of the landing stages in
Normandy. Southampton docks held hundreds of the mighty con-
crete caissons finished and half finished some ready to be taken
in tow and already in the grip of hawsers. Hundreds more were
moored at Itchin, Southampton. What an opportunity for the
Luftwaffe! But she never struck at the caissons, not once. We
never knew why.

I did not know the actual date of D-Day. But the Prime Min-
ister was terribly keyed up. Those around him knew that some-
thing big was on us. It was most noticeable when we left London
by special train on June 3. We took with us certain maps that
were fixed up in a locked saloon in charge of Captain Pirn. He
had been the genius who had built the "Map Room" that Church-
ill took all over the world and set up in the White House.

We went to a secret destination on the south coast. The day
was fine. There was a tank review, then bulldozers, then an un-
imaginable mass of stores being loaded into the landing craft
there.

As Churchill passed along the ranks of troops, we encountered
a detachment of 8th Army men of Libyan fame. Every man in the

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 293

8th Army knew Winston even from a distance. Many, unable to
speak, touched his coat as he passed.

We put out into Southampton water and on to Portsmouth.
Here was an endless spread-out of ships of all types: liners, war-
ships, monitors. Everyone we passed cheered loudly. It is not
possible to visualize an armada of this depth without actually
seeing it. We went aboard a cipher ship which we were told was
the heart and center of communication and would play a great
part in the control of the various invasion plans. We got a bad
weather report while on this ship, one which visibly concerned
General Eisenhower with whom Churchill went into a long series
of discussions.

We went back to town. Sunday came. So did de Gaulle. After
a long conference with him the French General returned for con-
ferences with Eisenhower. No matter what the subject or the occa-
sion, any conversation with de Gaulle is always tense. But it was
ascertained the invasion fleet could not leave that night because
of bad weather. Churchill came down to Southampton again. The
same three had another conference. Winston and I went back to
the train, followed shortly after by de Gaulle hi his car. The
Prime Minister had to return immediately to London and asked
the General to come along with him, and to dine with him en
route.

The invitation was refused. I felt at the time that de Gaulle
was put out about something, as he would have reached London
far sooner by taking advantage of the Prime Minister's offer. And
as he would be traveling in comfort as well, he could have the
valuable opportunity to converse for a few hours with an English-
man who had been almost as good a friend to France as de Gaulle
himself. But de Gaulle was seriously displeased about something.
One expected him to stamp Ms foot.

De Gaulle is brilliant and brave. He is also petty.

The Prime Minister lunched with the Kong at Buckingham
Palace, then visited General Eisenhower at SHAEF.

That night June 5 and the following dawn, June 6 was
D-Day.

Four years of hardship, death, misery and terror by night. All
the enslaved peoples of Europe must have wept with f eeling when

294 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

they knew. Now the mighty German was to meet a liberation force
that Hitler had scoffed at. "Those military idiots!" So often he'd
screamed this. "Had I before me a serious opponent, I'd know
where the Second Front would come! But with military idiots one
never knows!"

How right he was!

Eisenhower had had a terrible decision to make: whether to
go in with bad weather and with a promise of worse to come. He
had decided. It was an awful chance, a crushing risk. But it was
taken without flinching.

You all remember what happened. In six days, the U.S. and
British forces had taken sixty miles of the Normandy coast! The
artificial harbors functioned well. They did what they were built
for. Then many of them got smashed into uselessness by gales. I
saw this damage with Churchill. Most desolating sight, but the
British went to work reconstructing, with somewhat the same kind
of skill and resourcefulness that made the American Seabees
world famous in the Pacific.

Twenty-one days after D-Day, Cherbourg fell. We had our
first continental port, if you could call it that the demolition job
of the Germans was their very best. But in the first one hundred
days, 2,200,000 troops had landed. Four hundred and fifty thou-
sand vehicles had landed. And four million tons of stores.

U.S. and British joint planning made this possible. Nothing else.
Lessons learned in amphibious attacks in Africa and Italy, and
one vital and seldom mentioned item: the instant replacement of
all smashed or damaged equipment.

The long conferences that Churchill and his staff had so often
held in so many places all over North Africa with Generals
Bradley, Eisenhower and Marshall, paid off. And how!

It was the greatest amphibious operation in history. Air cover
was maintained by ten thousand planes: the RAF and the U.S.
8th and 9th. Four thousand ships crossed the Channel. Eighty bat-
tleships and cruisers put eight hundred heavy guns on the German
fortifications.

It was a busy summer and fall for Mr. Churchill, and also for
me.

A week passed. The good news continued. Then the Prime

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 295

Minister decided the moment had come for him to see the show
for himself. It was a sudden decision. We were in the country. We
left by special train and overnight went to Portsmouth. By early
morning of June 12, we were embarked in H.M.S. Kelvin. Field
Marshal Smuts and General Sir Alan Brooke accompanied the
Premier. Churchill, as usual when off on something dangerous,
was twitchy to be in motion.

As we left the dockside, all about could be seen ships loading.
The sky also was amarch with aircraft. We saw unnumbered con-
crete caissons again, being towed, then later twin pieces of the
landing piers. One of these had been broken adrift from its tug,
and we sank her with gunfire.

As we approached the Normandy coast a screen of small ships
could be seen in semicircular formation. These stopped U-boats
penetrating and sinking the landing craft. Beyond and ahead could
be seen the monitor Roberts. We could hear her guns as she threw
shells into German positions inland.

Two ducks came alongside. Our party, with Admiral Vian,
descended by the gangway to the ducks and thence to the beaches
of Normandy.

I landed with the Prime Minister. Here again was a moment
when it was hard to belong to Scotland Yard; hard not to com-
plain. My disappointment over not inspecting the Maginot Line
came back to me quite bitterly. But this was worse. There was no
transport for me. I was left on the beaches, a solitary civilian
among a million troops.

Some press correspondents I knew came to my rescue. They
told me where I might later on meet the P.M., gave me some food,
and together we walked along the beachhead for many hours.
Melodramatic results of the bombardment could be seen every-
where, but most of the smashup was ashore., few damaged ships
being in evidence at this part of the coast. We came upon the
grave of a Canadian soldier, hastily dug. At the end was his rifle
and his steel helmet. A small wooden cross, neatly whittled, read
simply: "Here lies a Canadian soldier."

We continued walking, finally arriving at Courcelles, a little vil-
lage where I rejoined the Prime Minister. Here the troops really
mobbed him. As they pressed about, patting him, slapping his

296 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

back and punching his ribs, three German fighter-bombers dashed
over the coast, dropped some bombs, then suddenly found them-
selves engaged by our Spitfires. One of the Germans came blazing
and hissing to earth, crashing in a huge roar nearby. A great cheer
went up, a sort of continuation to the welcome Winnie was get-
ting there.

We returned to the Kelvin but instead of steaming for home,
we ran at right angles to the shore, cutting our speed as we stood
off the German defenses. An order rang out. Our guns fired
several salvos into the German position. We provoked no reply
from them and set course for Portsmouth.

In the railroad journey back to London, I sat directly behind
Mr. Churchill, who was having an animated talk with Field
Marshal Smuts.

General Smuts said: "I think the Kelvin's captain is rather cross
with you." Churchill turned to the older man at once and asked
why. "For your ordering the firing on the German positions/*
Smuts told him.

"Well, I admit I'm only the Prime Minister and had no right
to take over Ms vessel, but "

"That isn't the way of it at all, Winston."

"Well, what is the way of it then?"

"When you ordered the Kelvin to fire, she was in full range
of German guns."

Then Churchill began to grin. "That's what I did it for! I wanted
response!"

Suddenly both the men laughed uproariously, others in the car
turning to peer at them. For a moment it did not seem like the
awfulest war in the world.

Yet only twelve days after the invasion of Normandy, the
Germans commenced to send their flying bombs to London and
into southern England. This was an unholy monster. No one can
deny the hideous impartiality of such a weapon, but it was soon
known all over England as the "doodlebug."

These were grim days. They have been recorded a thousand
times by as many writers. For us, the flying bomb set up a series
of Alerts that nearly cripped our energies. One got used to the
continuous gunfire, but the humming of the flying bomb and the

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 297

austere silence which followed the cutting out of its engine and
the heavy molar crash of its landing these were noises that set
up patterns in my patience most disquieting. The humming could
be heard right through heavy gunfire, even as the shrill bleat of an
E-Flat clarinet can pierce the full symphony.

London was on fire.

We were standing at the site of the wrecked Guards Chapel.
Churchill for the most part had been taking the main events
through which we were passing with noble restraint, but this
spectacle and the dead still unclaimed was hard to look at. A
flying bomb had slipped through the defenses and crashed into the
Guards Chapel at a time when a service was in progress. As at
times he would cheer out loud watching a fight in progress over-
head, so he would sometimes look and shudder and weep. So it
was here. His pity was always greater than his fury.

We left the scene of rescue and he and Mrs. Churchill paid a
visit to AA gun sites in the south of England. Here at one of
these their youngest daughter, Mary, was in charge of a plotting
battery. She was glad to see them but too busy to give them her
time. By now the guns in London itself were no longer being
brought into action during an Alert. The system of defense and
attack worked outside the London area. Flying bombs which
escaped it pursued their course unchecked; unchecked, that is,
until they were intercepted by our fighters.

The Germans chose two time periods to make these attacks:
evening hours, and very early morning. Although an Alert usually
lasted throughout the night, the All Clear would generally sound
between five and six. From then until nine would be an almost
continuous series of Alerts. These heralded the approach of an
increased number of buzz bombs, and at those hours when a
majority of people were getting up, having breakfast, or making
their way to work.

Intensity of these raids mounted during the summer. There
were a few moments of relief. One was the afternoon of July 26.
Mussolini resigned. He was rescued, as you recall, by the Germans
who didn't much want him. Churchill called him a name then that
will stick all through history "that tattered lackey." Tojo re-
signed, a great gratification to the Americans in the Pacific. The

298 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

Germans capitulated in Paris and armed civilians liberated their
own city. It was turned over to de Gaulle. I am sure this pleased
Churchill.

One Friday evening in late summer, out of the blue, there was a
colossal explosion, the worst I heard in the whole war. It took
place at Chiswick. It made a deeper crater than the flying bomb.
The noise was heard in London many miles away. A complete
security blackout was laid down. The cause was put down offi-
cially to a burst gas main! It was the first of a series of "burst
mains." Somehow it never affected the gas supply. It wasn't long,
therefore, before Londoners knew that the Germans had a new
one. It was the V-2, infinitely more terrifying than the blitz or the
flying bombs.

I say terrifying for many times I felt the terror of it. It was
terrifying even to contemplate. The reason is simple. It traveled
at a velocity so great as to make advance warning altogether im-
possible. No Alerts therefore, since none could be sounded. People
went about their normal business knowing that at any moment a
rocket would descend and the authorities were absolutely help-
less in the matter. It was this sense of impotence that froze one.

The V-2 actually traveled so much faster than sound that the
first indication of its presence was the crash of it hitting. After
this came another slightly smaller or lesser explosion its war-
head blowing up then a pause, and finally a long rambling roar
like thunder. This last noise, after the pause, was the sound of the
rocket on its way, arriving somewhat after the rocket.

We took it all through the winter of 1944-45. We were also
having our coldest winter in fifty years.

How did the British take all this? And how did Churchill take
it? In our concentrated population there was little fussing. And
never once did I see panic, or even the hint of panic. But the ear-
lier contemptuous and even jocular attitude displayed in previous
raids was lacking. We had had it. The people still held on, but
the hours, the blackout, the queueing, the rationing, loss of rest
and holidays, loss of homes and children, the great dead areas
without fun or change all this finally began to grind down our
nerves. We became grim and ugly. Any Germans who might have
invaded us would have met no pity. Englishmen who lived through

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 299

this will not easily forget this last ordeal to which we had been
submitted. Among most Englishmen there will never be a "Let
bygones be bygones" attitude toward the Germans. I had lost one
of my sons, but Churchill's attitude seemed typical and he had not
lost any of his immediate family.

His hatred was expressed to President Roosevelt at the Quebec
Conference and on our next trip to Moscow only a few days after
we'd come back from America. Roosevelt had not come to Mos-
cow. After a gala performance at the Bolshoi Theatre a party was
given later by Stalin marked by tiresome toasts of "future collab-
oration and eternal friendship"; Churchill suddenly seized a goblet
of wine and returned a compliment that Stalin had paid the
British with these words: "I have always believed and I still be-
lieve that it is the Red Army that has torn the guts out of the
filthy Nazis," When Pavlov translated this sentence, the Russians
seemed to go crazy, and Joe Stalin clapped Winston over the
back and shoulders so hard the two spilled liquor all over each
other.

On October 14, at another gala performance, Mr. Churchill
entered the theatre with the Polish Prime Minister. The whole
audience rose. The Marshal, who was standing to the rear, was
called forward by Mr. Churchill, who insisted that all should be
seen together. At this point Mr. Eden and Mr. Molotov moved
in, and there was a new outburst of cheering as the five were
photographed together.

We got back to England just in time to take off again, this
time for Paris. The liberated city was going to celebrate its first
anniversary of Armistice Day of World War I, the first it was able
to observe in four years. Paris was aquiver. Her citizens did not
know that Mr. Churchill had arrived.

The crowds were oriental in their congestion. Just before eleven
o'clock the Prime Minister, in a Royal Air Force uniform and
accompanied by General de Gaulle and Mr. Eden, left the Quai
d'Orsay in an open car. I stood on the runningboard* We pro-
ceeded to the Axe de Triomphe and were in turn preceded by
several cars filled with French police. Flags of the Allies were
fluttering from most of the buildings. Window frames were jammed.
It was the greatest day of rejoicing I have seen.

300 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

Oa the stroke of eleven, a single gua was fired for silence. The
crowd congealed. There was not a murmur. Another gun an-
nounced the end of the two minutes. Mr. Churchill and General
de Gaulle, each carrying a huge wreath, walked side by side to
the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

After this ceremony, Churchill, de Gaulle, and Mr. Eden
walked abreast refusing the cars that had brought them from
the Arc de Triomphe down the Champs Elysees through crowds
which the French police found almost impossible to control.

The party finally reached the saluting base where Mrs. Church-
ill, Mrs. Eden, Mme. de Gaulle and Mary Churchill were waiting.
For an hour and a half a great military parade passed us, led by
General Koenig, Commander-in-Chief of the Free French In-
fantry.

After the parade there was an elaborate luncheon at which our
party was entertained by de Gaulle at the War Ministry, and where
General Giraud and many prominent Frenchmen spoke. All
stressed the need for a French-British entente. It seemed a long
way from "Attez! AttezJ" and I knew Winston thought of it here,

On the way back to London, we got the good news that Hitler's
best battleship, the Tirpitz, had been sunk by twelve thousand-
pound bombs from our Lancesters, Churchill told me he could not
ask for a better birthday present. He was seventy.

Greetings poured in from al over the world but there was al-
ways some mess that had to be taken care of. We went to Italy,
then Greece, where we spent Christmas, our headquarters being
the HJVLS. Ajax of Graf Spee fame. Here for the first time I saw
the energetic and brilliant Harold Macmillan now England's
Minister of Defense in action.

After the unbelievable complex of Greece was brought to work-
ing resolution, we had a few weeks in England that were presently
interrupted by our flight to the Crimea and thence to Cairo. The
Cairo interval was reminiscent of our first visit there and many
old memories came up. Our stay was too busy and Churchill was
constantly in the presence of one king or other, the Emperor of
Ethiopia, the King of Egypt, the King of Saudi Arabia, the Presi-
dent of Syria. President Roosevelt was on hand for most of these
talks but he would break off conversations, looking suddenly

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 301

weary, and ask to be taken back to his suite. For the first time,
Mr. Churchill and I shared a deep concern over how very badly
President Roosevelt was looking. It was hard to believe he was
the same man we had seen so recently in Quebec.

Our spirits stayed up, however. All sensed it was u the begin-
ning of the end." Big battles were occurring in the West. Troops
under Montgomery were clearing the enemy from the west bank
of the Rhine. Churchill felt the urge to plant his feet on conquered
German soil. He visited General Eisenhower, Field Marshal
Montgomery, and units of the American 9th Army. Before a group
of Highlanders and massed pipers, I got a thrill when he said:
"Anyone can see that one good strong heave, all together, will end
the war in Europe." Then, at defenses near Aachen in the Sieg-
fried Line at one of our artillery posts, he picked up a piece of
mechanic's chalk and printed out in great capitals: FOR HITLER
PERSONALLY. Then as a cheer went up he fired the 2400-mm.
gun and sent the shell toward Berlin. While we were still there we
got the electric news that the Americans had captured the Rema-
gen Bridge intact. We went over the Rhine.

On the way back to London, and I can say this now that I am
toward the end of this story, I believe Winston Churchill knew
that his own work was about over; that the end of war might also
detach him from public office. I believe he was prepared to take
what came, even though it might be as bitter as Dundee had been
so many years before. But I also believe he welcomed dismissal
for on our return to Chartwell in early April the Prime Minister
sat down in the doorway of one of the cottages and said with a
glint of humor: "Well, Thompson, there's a Cabinet meeting to-
morrow. If they throw me out, I'll come right back here and be
happy as a sandboy." And actually when it did happen, it wasn't
so very different from this.

I went to London with him. Everyone was looking older. And
was older. I never look at myself in a mirror. Even when shaving
I try not to look too directly at anything but the operation itself,
but I knew my face was changing. Unfortunately I was not grow-
ing into a resemblance of ChercMl through this long and inti-
mate association, but I was feeling the years; feeling life closing
in on me from many sides.

302 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

The Greek civil war had hit Winston very hard. Six weeks had
cost us about two hundred million dollars that we didn't have.
And the lives of two thousand British troops. The Yalta Confer-
ence had been successful but extremely wearing. (Historians are
questioning how successful it had been. The questioning of every-
thing Churchill ever did will begin any minute.) But diagrams for
the complete destruction of Germany as a fighting nation were
drafted in detail. Stettinius, who had replaced Cordell Hull, was
appointed to carry the constructive plans into fruition at a United
Nations Conference to take place in San Francisco in late April.

"Things are coming our way, Thompson," he said one morn-
ing to me and there was a sad peace in his voice. "I hope nothing
disturbs this sequence and that we shall happily pass Friday the
13th."

He often joked about Friday the 13th, but the joking was never
quite a joke with him. I do believe it was his one obstinate super-
stition. I do not know that he had any other. He played hunches
at gambling and I suppose that is a superstition.

But the Germans were getting shoved back so hard and so fast
on all fronts where they were still fighting that I looked forward
to any Friday the 13th with joy.

However, there was a Friday the 13th, and it was in April,
1945. It was 3:00 A.M. and my night bell rang. I was instantly
up. Winston seldom calls this late unless I have left him within
the last few minutes. This night he had turned off his light a little
before two. I was reading the newspapers. I was not restless but
I was wakeful.

"Can you come quickly, Thompson," Churchill said weakly. I
grabbed my guns and rushed in. I had horrible dreams of Tunis
and his hallucinations during fever, his visions of being dead in
the ruins of Carthage, and the nearness of it that is still dreadful
to me, even today.

He was up and pacing about his bedroom. His head was sunk
down. He kept looking at the rug. He would go from one wall to
another. He never stopped.

"Have you heard the terrible news, Thompson?"

"Oh, no, sir," I said, protesting. But he seemed all right and
that was the main thing. "Nothing in your family, sir?'*

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 303

"It is the President of the United States. Your friend and mine,
Thompson."

"Stricken?" I asked quickly, thinking of Yalta, and later, the
dead look the President had when they took leave in North Africa
and flew away.

"It is far worse, Thompson. He has passed away." For a long
time Winston Churchill just walked about his room, talking of
Roosevelt weeping, reminiscing, smiling, going over the days, the
years; recalling conversations, wishing he had done this, wonder-
ing what had been meant when Roosevelt said this or that; agree-
ing, disagreeing, reliving. Then I realized Winston could not stop
talking here in the middle of the night because he could not
bear the agony. Now that the great American was no more it was
all a terrible, unbearable loneliness for him. He suddenly felt
there was no one. And in a strange sense this was true: there was
no one left but Churchill.

I remember some of his sentences. "No one realized what that
man meant to this country. No Englishman can ever quite know it
altogether. They can only half sense it. Perhaps, in time. In later
years." He went over to a dressing table and opened a drawer. I
did not look up at him, for I knew what he would do there. He
kept his fresh handkerchiefs there.

"He was a great friend to us all. He gave us immeasurable help.
We would have surely gone under. We would have lost the war.
Without him and the Americans behind him, surely we would
have been smothered. There was just too much." Then he
wept, and finally recovered. "I do not know just now, but I will
try to fly across the ocean tomorrow. The funeral is to take place
at the weekend. I do not know for certain. I must ask the King
and the Members of the Cabinet There is so much. You will come
of course, if I go?" And he looked shyly at me.

"Of course, sir. Whatever is needed."

He walked over to a carafe and poured a glass of water.

"He was loved by millions. Inside and outside the United
States. Hated too, as who isn't who gets things done! I'll be hated.
But I'm composed about it It requires no resignation on my part
I'm sure it took none for Franklin." Then he drank the water and
set down the glass. "I have lost a great friend. One of the greatest

304 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

ever. And now " and here the pacing slowed and he went into
deep thought " we have to start all over again. And it is Friday
the 13th."

I must say I was so stunned a shiver jumped down my back and
a tremble went right through me.

"He has the peace and the satisfaction to know his w-ork is
done. To see it done just before the end. His task was completed
at Yalta. He died on the eve of victory but he saw the wings of it.
And he heard them."

Never will I forget that night. He seemed to want to go on talk-
ing. I stayed with him for some time.

I did not see how it could be arranged that the Prime Minister
get to America for the President's funeral. If the fact of peace
were at hand, yes. But there was fighting yet, and much of it. We
were approaching the final climax in the West. Militarily, Churchill
could not leave.

He knew this himself the next day. I believe he truly knew it
that night and that he was drawn to the picture in America by his
great love for Roosevelt while knowing that the exigency of his
own schedule would forbid the trip.

The war in Europe was now approaching its final phase. In
attempting to escape, Mussolini was captured by anti-Fascists and
executed, but not before he begged for his life. "Only spare my
life, and I will give you an Empire!" This was his last sentence.
Then he was shot. So was Signorina Petacci, his most recent mis-
tress. Both were stripped and hanged upside down and spat upon.

Winston received this news just as he entered the Great Hall
of Chequers for the weekend. A few guests had already arrived,
friends he knew well and to whom his expressions were not a
shock. With considerable pleasure and much emphasis he rolled
it out: "Ah, the bloody beast is dead!" Only three days later, we
received the news of Hitler's death as well. Churchill went to the
window and looked out at the lawns for a long time, his back to
the rest of us, and said no word. He never did have a word to say
about Hitler's self-destruction. Later, when he was asked if he
thought Hitler had committed suicide, Winston said quietly: "That
is the way I should have expected him to have died."

The Italian campaign came to an end .with the first uncondi-

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 305

tional surrender by the Germans this to that genius of military
efficiency. Field Marshal Sir Harold Alexander. Soon after the
mass surrender in northern Germany took place, Field Marshal
Sir Bernard Montgomery taking the surrender.

On Sunday, May 6, retiring at 4:00 A.M., he gave no sign that
things were truly over but he said: "The end is near. But we still
have a tough struggle in the East."

The "Cease Fire" was signed the next day, Admiral Doenitz
surrendering unconditionally.

The Prime Minister waited throughout the day, hoping for such
official confirmation as would permit him to release the news at
6:00 P.M. when all of England listens to the BBC news broadcast.
Winston was in touch with President Truman and Marshal Stalin
and a decision was finally reached that the statement be made the
next day at 3:00 P.M. The public was then notified that Tuesday,
May 8, would be V-E Day, and that told them all they wanted to
know.

At dawn on the 8th, large crowds were akeady gathered in
Whitehall, outside the House of Commons, and around Bucking-
ham Palace. They knew Churchill would visit Commons. They
waited in thousands to see him. At 10:45 he drove to the House of
Commons. At least we drove part of the way. No engine power
was necessary. The car was literally lifted and pushed along by
the crowd.

We traveled as far as Parliament Square with little difficulty,
the crowds cheering wildly as we passed. They were all deter-
mined to see him and touch him. To congratulate him personally.
Millions seemed to get their wish! I hadn't been so scared for him
and his safety as that day years before in Cairo when the Egyptians
mobbed us.

Mounted police came upon the scene. How welcome! The excite-
ment was stupendous. Winston had wisely come into the front
seat now, with myself and my other colleagues around him. What
a wonderful day for him!

Eventually we somehow got to the House, but it was the worst
struggle I'd ever been through with him. He enjoyed every inch
of it, every smiling face, every shout. So did I.

Later we walked in procession with other Ministers and Mem-

306 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

bers of the House of Commons, to St. Margaret's Church for a
Thanksgiving service. Then we returned once more to the House.
On leaving the House, we were due to go straight to Buckingham
Palace, where the War Cabinet and the Chiefs of Staff were re-
ceived by His Majesty the King.

En route, the Prime Minister asked for a cigar.

But, awful to report, I had come without his case! For the first
time in my life! What a day! But he was not put out. He was
quite charming. "Let us go round to the Annex," he said. "I wiH
get one there." I thought he must have wanted to smoke very
badly indeed, but should have known better, and did, thanks to
his next sentence: "I must put on a cigar. They expect it!" How
he laughed. How I did!

And once he got it, he stood up conspicuously and conspicu-
ously lighted it. They all cheered. And cheered him on into Buck-
ingham Palace, where he had lunch with the King.

At three he broadcast to the nation, then returned to Number
Ten Downing Annex where Mr. Churchill went to the Ministry of
Health. He went through the glass doors and out upon the balcony.
The crowd was beside itself. I have never heard such cheering,
except at the Coronation and the Queen's return. He made a
speech, the people meanwhile cheering for all they were worth.
They kept calling him out. And he kept coming out. Once he
brought his little grandson with him young Julian Sandys. This
broke them all up. They began to sing "Land of Hope and Glory."

And they laughed at everything he said: "Why don't you take
the day off tomorrow as well!" They roared. At another point he
said, "The lights went out" and for just an instant, right then the
floodlights did dim. And the crowd screamed with delight, al-
though I think he was started upon a serious sentence. It never
was finished. Winston looked over at me and his eyes asked me
what they were laughing at. It was just the way the crowd felt. It
was what they wanted to do. And mostly, it was because they so
loved and honored Winston Churchill. He shrugged and smiled
and waved and came back in.

The next day V-E Day plus 1 was another hard one for
us all. I was asked early in the morning to chart the drive through
the west end of London. It was to include in its route the Ameri-

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 307

can and Soviet Embassies, and a visit to the French Ambassador.
We left for these visits in an open car about 4:00 P.M. We had
an escort of four mounted police. The journey was triumphant. I
felt safe with the mounted police about the car. I felt safe at the
sight of the fine horses. We came back about 6:00 P.M. He imme-
diately went to a meeting at Number Ten. He walked there, al-
though a large crowd waited for him outside the Annex. Thinking
he did not require an open car again, I sent it away.

At 8:30, he left Number Ten. He saw the closed car waiting.
A large crowd was at the bottom of Downing Street. He asked
for the open car. When he was told it was not available, he said,
"I will walk through them."

"It will be impossible, sir," I said quickly. "The crowd is too
dense."

But he started. On reaching Whitehall he realized he could not
get through. "I will walk between the two cars," he said. He then
began walking at the rear of the first car with the other following.
But immediately the crowds closed in. I begged him to wait for
the mounted police. But he was so sure of himself, he would not
wait. He was quite peeved over the open car having been sent
away.

Meanwhile we had a terrific straggle to keep the crowd from
engulfing him. He saw he was in danger, that he might be over-
run, knocked down, and trampled. He climbed up on the rear
bumper of the car. Our control was improved by this. But the
crowd kept pressing in on behind, trying to pat his back or shake
hands with him.

Suddenly he decided to climb up on top of the car. With our
assistance, he was able to get a good position there. Then, once
there, he saw better possibilities. He crawled along the top of the
car on all fours until he could sit in the front with his legs dangling
over the front windscreen.

Here he looked very funny. And very happy. He gave the im-
pression of a schoolboy on an outing. The crowd liked the posture.
So through the ecstatic mob to Number Ten Annex. We went to
the balcony in Parliament Street where there was another huge
crowd. He spoke for some moments. He led them all in singing a

308 ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL

verse of "Rule Britannia." They did not need to be invited to join
in. It rang over the whole city of London.
We got to bed about 5:00 A.M.

In this book of my experiences with this noble man, I know I
have told very little that can have interest to the historian, but I
have tried to set down my impressions of the man as I saw him
day by day.

In the evening of Ms life and work (his eightieth birthday was
November 30, 1954), I hope that the peoples of the world will
long remember him as the one who, when all seemed about to
crack, hung on; that his eloquence and his determination and his
honest endeavor to keep this world together, and keep it right,
did vitally help bring us through to victory in Europe where my
story ends.

You know he lost the election in another month. My duties as
Ms bodyguard came to an end the same day. I returned to Scot-
land Yard for another assignment. On the way, I realized that I
too was weary, that I didn't at all want another assignment; that
I'd had my best one. And I felt, too, that I had done my best.
Churchill was alive. That is all they had asked of me.

Now I just wanted to retire. And I did.

I think it is fitting to mention here the crowning honor of
Winston's life, the bestowal upon him of the title Knight of the
Most Noble Order of the Garter. As you probably know, the origin
of the Order dates back to the fourteenth century. Legend has it
that Edward III, on retrieving a garter dropped by the Countess
of Salisbury, coldly reprimanded his tittering courtiers with the
remark: "Honi soit qui mal y pense"the present day motto of
the Order.

The ceremony took place in the Throne Room of Windsor
Castle, where Her Majesty invested Sir Winston with the insignia
of the Order. The Garter King of Anns, Sir George Bellow, handed
the jeweled garter to the Queen who, assisted by the Marquis of
Salisbury and Earl Alexander, buckled the garter just below the
Prime Minister's left knee.

ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL 309

As the ceremony continued, the Riband and the Star, the mantle
collar and the chain were bestowed upon Sir Winston. The ancient
oath was administered that "Wittingly or willingly you shall not
break any statute of the said Order," and in reply Sir Winston
said, "So help me God." The traditional lunch was then held in
the castle, followed by the colorful pageantry of the procession
of the knights to the chapel, walking in reversed seniority, two by
two, Sir Winston being first and alone, smiling and appearing
extremely happy. Her Majesty, escorted by the Duke of Edinburgh,
ended the procession, beautiful in her dress of white and gold.
The Household Cavalry Band played until Her Majesty passed
under the lintel Then silence, followed by a fanfare of trumpets
and the ringing of the bells in the Curfew Tower. The assembled
company then went to their respective stalls, surrounded by the
hundreds of armoural plates of knights long since passed away.
After the National Anthem had been sung the Queen commanded:
"It is our pleasure that the Knight Companion be installed." Earl
Halifax then called out: "The Right Honorable Sir Winston
Leonard Spencer Churchill," and the Garter King of Arms con-
ducted the Prime Minister to his stall.

A moment of absolute silence followed. It was as though the
ghosts of the knights of the past were looking down on this most
memorable occasion. For the Queen, it was the first Garter cere-
mony of her reign; it seems right that the Prime Minister should be
the first so honored.

A short service Mowed, closing with the Te Deum This
concluded the investiture and installation of one of the most color-
ful men of our century; one who richly deserved the honor con-
ferred upon him, and who will bring to the Order dignity and
chivalry.

It has been a privilege to live during the lifetime of such a man,
and to have been his protector over so many years, and to have
received such friendship from him.

When shall we find another Anglo-American to take his place?

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