Free Churchill's Hour by Michael Dobbs

danced with amusement.
    â€˜We’re looking forward to seeing you at Chequers at weekend, zur,’ the valet continued as the ambassador stood on the doorstep, inspecting the weather. ‘But you’ll find it very English. Might I suggest that you put aside a particularly warm pair o’ pyjamas for the occasion? The central heating in’t up to what most American gentlemen seem to expect. I’m sure if Mr Roosevelt sends us any more American guests, we’ll have to ask him to send a new boiler along wi’ ‘em.’
    The rain was growing heavier. The American pulled up his collar and scoured the sky. ‘Well, Sawyers, we’ll see what we can do. Tanks, battleships,bombers—and one new boiler. Lend-Lease at your service. Which reminds me, you will be getting another American soon, the man who’s coming to run the whole Lend-Lease show. Harriman. Averell Harriman’s his name.’
    â€˜We look forward to meeting the gentleman. I’m sure he’ll be given a right warm welcome by Mr Churchill and the entire family. Night, Your Excellence.’
    As the door closed behind him the ambassador, hat clamped firmly to his head, disappeared into the rapidly fading light. As he hurried through the drizzle, he wondered if Hitler knew that Downing Street appeared to be defended by nothing more than one unarmed policeman and an uppity servant.
    She found him seated in an armchair by the fire in the Hawtrey Room, with Nelson asleep on his lap. It was late, almost midnight.
    She hadn’t wanted to disturb him, but she knew of no one else who might understand, no one else who knew Randolph well enough—his recklessness, his passions, his appetites and ego, his moments as a little boy lost, all of which she had been able to tolerate and even welcome, until they had ended up smothering her in debt and left her bleeding on a bathroom floor.
    He never turned her away, not like he did so many of the others. She seemed to occupy a special part in his world—so did Randolph, of course, but Pamela didn’t shout at him. And while his own elder daughters seemed to have inherited the ‘Black Dog’ of darkness that so often pursued him, Pamela was fun. Uninhibited. Almost a talisman. It wasn’t simply marriage and the baby, but a link that stretched back through the mists of time. Pamela had been born in the manor house at Minterne Magna in Dorset, which three centuries earlier had belonged to the Churchill family. The first Sir Winston Churchill had been born and was buried there. Links that bound them together from long ago.
    He was studying the contents of a buff-coloured box. It was his box of secrets, in which Menzies and his intelligence men sent him their most sensitive items—his ‘golden eggs’, as he called them. She saw it and her heart sank. The papers came first. This was the wrong moment.
    He looked up. She could see the rime of exhaustion clinging to his eyes before he returned to staring into the fire.
    â€˜This morning, we shot a German spy,’ he said, very softly. ‘Parachuted in. Fell badly. The constabulary picked him up in less than three hours. And in less than three months we sat him in a chair, bound his arms and then his eyes, and proceeded to snuff out his life.’
    She was surprised to see tears glinting in the firelight.
    â€˜He was born in the same year as Randolph.’
    â€˜He was a spy, Papa.’
    â€˜He was a brave young man.’
    â€˜A German. An enemy.’
    â€˜And shall we shoot them all?’ He began stroking Nelson, staring into the fire. ‘When will it cease, Pamela? When shall we be able to return to the lives we once knew?’
    â€˜Only when we have won.’
    â€˜And, I fear, not even then.’ He seemed to be in pain. For many moments he sat silently, hurting, his mind elsewhere, seeking comfort from the cat.
    â€˜Every night, before I fall asleep, I place myself before a