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.Austere, ascetic, intensely lonely,seemingly omniscient and loyal beyond belief, the Prof.was the ideal foil.Winston was innocent of all scientific knowledge: when the B.B.C.devel-oped a super-power transmitter, Aspidistra, he would believe it could beheard by the troops even without a receiver.8 The Prof.entranced himwith his thumbnail calculations.After Winston was hit by the New Yorkcab in 1931, he had dourly telegraphed that the impact was equivalent tofalling thirty feet, or to being hit by a brick dropped from six hundredfeet.Even more flatteringly, Churchill s otherwise unenergetic person hadabsorbed the car s kinetic energy at the rate of eight thousand horse-power.9The Prof.too harboured an Ovidian disdain for the profanum vulgus; heregarded the working classes as a species of sub-human.10 He rated politi-cians and rival scientists little higher. Politicians? he boomed over onedinner that summer. They d have done much better if they d tossed acoin before every decision since 1932.Then at least they d probably havebeen right half the time. 11 And he gave the little sniff that masqueraded asa laugh.Churchill impelled him to start thinking about anti-aircraft rocketswhich could be guided by radar and detonated by proximity fuse, a newdevice.12 Lindemann responded well to prompting and worked hard tobetter anti-tank weapons like  sticky bombs. He suggested Molotovcocktails too, which seemed to have proved effective in Spain and Po-land.13 Churchill promoted the Prof. s favourite projects like the navalwire barrage heedless of expert criticism.When Churchill suggested usinggiant ice floes as aircraft carriers, the project  habakkuk  would hauntthe government departments throughout the war.Lindemann frowned onthe idea: it would involve pumping 100 million gallons of water a day,equal to the entire pumping capacity of the London Water Board, andfreezing it three feet deep every twenty-four hours.He suggested concrete instead   A concrete habakkuk would bevery like a large skyscraper built on its side. It would be about five thou-sand feet long by one thousand feet broad and one hundred feet deep.Churchill refused to be fobbed off. I have long zested for the floating is-land, he would scrawl across one document. It has always broken down.The ice scheme must be reported on first.Don t get in its way. 14Lindemann s fertile brain never wearied of new ideas.When Winstonwas still First Lord, the Prof.had nagged the experts to develop a torpedothat would home onto a U-boat s own noise; they choked it off as imprac-ticable.(Both the Americans and Germans succeeded.) Now he would386CHURCHILL S WARsuggest less likely projects: aerial mines dangled by slow aeroplanes alongthe enemy radio-beams, and myriad  small magnets fitted with lights cas-caded into the waters where a submarine was suspected.Between them,however, Churchill and the Prof.did develop some schemes of greatmilitary vision.On July 7, for example, Churchill asked the minister ofsupply what was being done about designing ships capable of transportingtanks for an invasion.15If such an idea prospered, like these tank landing craft or the later ar-tificial harbours, he would claim absolute paternity.Woe betide anyscheme he had not fathered.Independently of him, Lord Hankey createdthe Petroleum Warfare Department and was igniting streams of petrolalong possible invasion beaches and approach roads.Winston disparagedand obstructed the idea.16 on what may be the eve of an attempted invasion or battle for our nativeland, stated the proclamation Churchill now circulated throughout hisgovernment,  the prime minister desires to impress upon all persons.their duty to maintain a spirit of alert and confident energy. The prime minister expects, he continued, with Nelson s famousflag hoist fluttering in his memory,all His Majesty s servants in high places to set an example ofsteadiness and resolution.They should check and rebuke expres-sions of loose and ill-digested opinion in their circles, or by theirsubordinates.They should not hesitate to report, or if necessaryremove, any officers or officials who are found to be consciouslyexercising a disturbing or depressing influence, and whose talk iscalculated to spread alarm and despondency.17He half expected the invasion to begin that weekend: Hitler wasknown to favour Saturdays.Exasperated by his queries, Colonel Ian Jacobminuted to Ismay on July 2,  We really must leave the C-in-C to make hisown plans. Saturday arrived, but not the enemy.Churchill obstinatelyminuted his staff to list every invasion indication,18 then left with FieldMarshal Ironside to watch British and newly-arrived Canadian troops con-ducting anti-invasion exercises in Kent.It gave him a happy excuse toweekend at Chartwell.He proudly showed off his pond and fed the goldencarp. He calls them all darlings, wrote a secretary who had accompaniedhim,  and shouts to the cat and even the birds. 19No warlord trusts subordinates to attend to detail.Hitler had scruti-nised the demolition chambers on Dutch bridges, had reminded generals387DAVID IRVINGthat sunrise in France was later than in Berlin, had peered at models of theBelgian forts. The Playthings of the Empress, his staff officers had snig-gered.Churchill had always shown the same obsessive attention to detail.During the General Strike he had haunted the offices of the British Gazette,overseeing every comma. He thinks he is Napoleon, wrote the responsi-ble cabinet minister ironically,  but curiously enough the men who havebeen printing all their life.know more about their job than he does. 20Now his inventive mind roamed the coming invasion battlefield,which he first took to be the east coast, and later the south.After donningan air commodore s uniform he would drive over to airfields in Kent andSussex; in spurious naval rig he toured the Channel defences, askingprobing questions about refugee control and the removal of untrustworthypeople.21 How could enemy agents fighting in British uniform be identi-fied?22 Had trenches been dug to prevent aircraft using open fields?23 HadBritain prepared her own oil depots for demolition?24He shared Hitler s fascination with gigantic artillery, and the navy hadinstalled at Dover  on what Colville called his  caprice  a fourteen-inchgun capable of hurling one-ton shells at unfortunate France.25 Around thecoastline the admiralty was emplacing torpedo tubes and 150 six-inch gunswith seven thousand sailors and marines to man them.26Ironside found him  in one of his go-getter humours. 27 Finding Gen-eral Sir Bernard Montgomery s 3rd division spread along the coast, theP.M.demanded  flagging the note action this day  that the war officepull it back into reserve and requisition the omnibuses plying Brighton ssummer seafront to make it mobile.The invasion battles should be foughtinland; he suggested that the navy lay minefields to seal off the rear of anenemy seaborne landing.A P.M.could take decisions that a colonel could not.He approvedplans to drench invaders with poison gas, telling a major-general wholunched with him:  I have no scruples. He decided against apprising theUnited States; the necessary chemicals would be procured elsewhere [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]