Free The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson Page B

walked along a towpath as children played nearby and plovers called to one another. “There has never been a more beautiful setting in which to be happy,” Colville wrote, “and I have never felt greater serenity or contentment.”
    Gay felt likewise. She told Colville that “happiness could only be attained if one lived for the moment.”
    This seemed promising. But then, upon returning to her room, Gay reiterated her decision that she and Colville would never marry. He promised to wait, in case she changed her mind. “She urged me not to be in love with her,” he wrote, “but I told her that to have her as my wife was the greatest ambition I had, and that I could not give up crying for the moon, when the moon meant everything in life to me.”
    He spent Sunday night on a sofa in a cottage on the grounds of a nearby estate owned by the family of a sister-in-law, Joan.
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    I N L ONDON THAT EVENING, May 26, just before seven P.M. , Churchill ordered the start of Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from the French coast.
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    I N B ERLIN, H ITLER DIRECTED his armored columns to resume their advance against the BEF, which now crowded the port city of Dunkirk. His forces moved more tentatively than expected, content to let Göring’s bombers and fighters finish the task at hand.
    But Göring harbored a distorted perception of what by now was unfolding off the coast of Dunkirk, as British soldiers—nicknamed Tommies—prepared to evacuate.
    “Only a few fishing boats are coming across,” he said on Monday, May 27. “One hopes that the Tommies know how to swim.”

C HAPTER 8
The First Bombs
     
    T HE ESCAPE RIVETED THE WORLD. In his diary, the king kept a daily count of how many men had gotten away. The Foreign Office sent Roosevelt detailed daily updates. Initially the Admiralty had expected that at best 45,000 men would escape; Churchill himself estimated a maximum of 50,000. The tally for the first day—just 7,700 men—seemed to suggest that both estimates were generous. The second day, Tuesday, May 28, was better, with 17,800 men evacuated, but still nowhere near the kind of volume Britain would need to reconstitute a viable army. Throughout, however, Churchill never flagged. Far from it. He seemed almost enthusiastic. He understood, however, that others did not share his positive outlook; this was underlined on that Tuesday when one member of his War Cabinet said the BEF’s prospects looked “blacker than ever.”
    Recognizing that confidence and fearlessness were attitudes that could be adopted and taught by example, Churchill issued a directive to all ministers to put on a strong, positive front. “In these dark days the Prime Minister would be grateful if all his colleagues in the Government, as well as high officials, would maintain a high morale in their circles; not minimizing the gravity of events, but showing confidence in our ability and inflexible resolve to continue the war till we have broken the will of the enemy to bring all Europe under his domination.”
    Also that day, he sought to put to an end, once and for all, any thought of Britain seeking peace with Hitler. Speaking before twenty-five of his ministers, he told them what he knew about the impending debacle in France and conceded that even he had briefly considered negotiating a peace agreement. But now, he said: “I am convinced that every man of you would rise up and tear me down from my place if I were for one moment to contemplate parley or surrender. If this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground.”
    For a moment, there was stunned silence. Then, to a man, the ministers rose and mobbed him, slapping his back and shouting their approval. Churchill was startled, and relieved.
    “He was quite magnificent,” wrote one minister, Hugh Dalton. “The man, and the only man we have, for this hour.”
    Here, as in