Winston’s War by Michael Dobbs Page B

evening and disappear into his glass. A Swedish businessman named Svensson was courteous but cautious, preferring to listen and prod rather than to preach himself, almost as if he was a little overawed by the company. Meanwhile the Duke of Gloucester at the far end of the table was on his usual form, anesthetizing guests on every side. This was not the effect Kennedy required. He enjoyed confrontation, the clash of words and wills. The English were so bad at it, but the Irish of East Boston—ah, they were a different breed entirely.
    “Mr. Ambassador, where are the little ones?” Churchill's head rose from his plate. Kennedy noticed he had dribbled gravy down his waistcoat, but the politician seemed either not to have noticed or not to care.
    “Sent most of them to Ireland last week. A chance to search for their roots.”
    “Ah.” A pause. “I see.” So the hostages to fortune had fled. Churchill returned his attentions to his plate, indicating a lack of desire to pursue the line of conversation.
    “You don't approve, Winston?”
    “What? Of sending the little birds abroad at a time of crisis?” He considered. “For men in public positions there are no easy choices.”
    “But you wouldn't.”
    “There is a danger of sending out the wrong sort of signal.”
    “You'd keep your kids here, beneath the threat of bombs?”
    “There is another way of looking at it. The presence of our loved ones serves as a constant reminder of what we arefighting for. And perhaps a signal to the aggressor that we are confident of victory.”
    “But we Americans have no intention of fighting. And as for victory…”
    “You doubt our cause?”
    “I doubt your goddamned air defenses.” He attacked his pudding as though he were redrawing frontiers. “You know what I hear, Winston? Last week as you were all digging in around London and waiting for the Luftwaffe, you guys had less than a hundred anti-aircraft guns for the entire city.”
    Churchill winced, which served only to encourage the other man.
    “Hey, but that's only the headline. Of those hundred guns, less than half of 'em worked. Had the wrong size ammo, or the batteries were dead. And you know what I found when I chatted to the air-raid guys in the park?”
    “Why bother with conjecture when surely you are going to tell me?”
    “They didn't have any steel helmets. After all these years of jawing about the bloody war, you think the guys in command might just've figured out that the troops needed some steel helmets? Just in case Hitler decided to start dropping things?”
    Churchill seemed, like his city, to be all but defenseless. “I have long warned about the deficiencies of our ARP,” was all he could muster.
    On the other side of the table Kennedy's niece whispered in her companion's ear. “What's ARP?”
    The question caused Brendan Bracken to chew his lip, and not for the first time that evening. He was a man of extraordinary features, his vivid red hair cascading down his forehead like lava from an exploding volcano. He had a temperament to match, conducting his outpourings with a wild swinging of his arms. Yet this evening, in the presence of the Ambassador's niece, he had become unusually subdued. Women—apart from hismother—had never played much of a role in his life, his singular energies having been devoted to making money and climbing the political ladder. And what did women matter in an English Establishment where rumors of homosexuality circulated as freely as the port? Yet Anna Maria Fitzgerald was different. Most other young women he found frivolous and teasing, viewing him either as a potential wealthy match or an object of sexual curiosity, or both, at which point he would hide behind his bottle-end spectacles and invent a new story about himself to suit the situation. But American girls—and Anna in particular—seemed so much more straightforward. He didn't feel the need to put on an act, but since role-playing had been the habit of his