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Different people, appropriately, had spoken for that England.
But now it was blinking open its eyes and taking stock of its situation. After
the short-
lived euphoria of Munich, people across the nation had found themselves
awakening to the sober realization that they did not feel reassured of having
bought peace in their time, and that shame and guilt had not been appeased.
Since then, although the papers gave no great exposure to the fact and most
people continued to go about their business, pretending that they weren't
pretending not to have noticed, gas masks were being issued to every citizen;
air-raid shelters were appearing in all the cities; strange steel lattice
constructions were springing up at intervals along the coast; and the
Hurricane and Spitfire factories were working around-the-clock.
Now, at last, the nation was starting to heed the warnings that it had been
ignoring. It would want facts now, not myths; it would look for direction, not
empty reassurances. It made sense that the right people to speak for this new,
awakening England would be the ones whom the old, sleeping England had
rejected. And the person around whom these people were falling into orbit as
they gravitated together was Churchill.
Furthermore, Winslade and his colleagues had begun to see, even Churchill's
political ostracism could turn out to be more of an advantage than the
hindrance it had seemed at first sight to be. Perhaps there was something to
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be said for picking as their contact a person whose public image and
reputation had not been tarnished by association with the policies of recent
years and who could in no way be held accountable for their consequences.
Suddenly the verdict of the old-timers made sense, so much so that it seemed
it should have been obvious all along, and in the end Churchill was chosen
unanimously.
Bannering glanced at his watch after they had been talking for some time.
"They should be here soon now," he said.
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"Yes, Churchill was known for being punctual, wasn't he." Winslade drew on the
cigar that he had helped himself to and exhaled luxuriously. Although he
looked superficially relaxed, a glint of excitement showed in his eyes.
"You've been looking forward to meeting him," Bannering commented as he
watched.
"He had none of the virtues I dislike, and all of the vices I admire,"
Winslade admitted.
He puffed at his cigar again and thought to himself for a moment. "Not only
that -- the feeling of being back here is exhilarating, too. You know, the
problem with America, Arthur, is that it went directly from barbarism to
decadence, without the customary period of intervening civilization."
"Humph -- you stole that from Churchill," Bannering accused. "I read it
somewhere in one of his papers."
"Did I? Oh, maybe I did. Is it legally possible to plagiarize between one
world and another? I wonder"
Kurt Scholder studied his drink and swirled it around in the glass first one
way, then the other. "With Germany, the problem is a different one," he
murmured. "There, you see, they went from civilization to barbarism without
giving themselves a chance to enjoy any decadence at all."
A tap sounded on the door, and the maOtre d'h"tel appeared.
"The rest of your party is here, Mr. Winslade," he announced. "Mr. Winston
Churchill and three other gentlemen."
"Ah, yes, splendid," Winslade acknowledged, rising to his feet. "Show them
straight in if you would, please."
The maOtre d'h"tel held the door aside and ushered in a broad, stocky figure
with thinning, red hair and a pugnacious jaw, dressed in a striped three-piece
suit with polka dot bow tie; he was already familiar from the hours that the
Proteus people had spent poring over photographs and documents. Behind him was
Eden, tall, handsomely endowed with dark, wavy hair and a thick mustache, also
wearing a three-piece suit. Beside Eden came Duff Cooper, shorter in stature
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