WC02 - Never Surrender by Michael Dobbs Read Free Book Online

had to make sense, so Don told the others. Only problem was, it seemed to involve so many filing cabinets once again.
    The two men met in the middle of the huge walled garden. One bowed, they shook hands.
    "I must confess that I have been lying in wait for you, Edward."
    "Then it is my turn to confess, sir, and tell you that I fear I've been avoiding you."
    They walked on, casting long evening shadows on the lawn, taking in the false sweetness of that spring. They were the two most respected men in the country, yet both victims of their birth. One was King, the other the most influential of aristocrats, and between them they represented all the powers and privileges that had kept the kingdom undiminished for a thousand years. Now it might not see out the summer.
    "Why have you been avoiding me, Edward?"
    "Because I fear I have let you down."
    "Perhaps you have let yourself down."
    "I fear that, too."
    King George VI walked on in silence with Edward, the Third Viscount Halifax, at his side. The two men were far more than monarch and Foreign Minister. There was an intimacy between them, a deep friendship that extended far beyond their formal roles. They and their families dined together, went to the theatre together, sometimes prayed together, down on their knees, side by side, and Halifax had been given a key to the gardens of Buckingham Palace for his own private recreation. Two days earlier he'd also been given the opportunity of becoming Prime Minister, and only because of his own overwhelming reluctance had the office been handed to Winston Churchill. Now, as they walked, Halifax's tall, angular frame was bent low, like a penitent. A flight of ducks flew noisily above their heads, wheeling sharply in formation before crashing into the lake, where they began a noisy confrontation with the birds they had disturbed.
    The ducks rather remind me," Halifax began tentatively, anxious to avoid the King's questions, 'of those poor Dutch ministers."
    "The Dutch? Tell me, I've heard nothing," the King insisted anxiously. He was always concerned about keeping up with information; he found his job wretched enough without having to do it in the dark.
    They were flying from Holland yesterday when they were intercepted by German fighters. They made it through, but badly damaged. Forced to ditch in the sea off Brighton. And that's where the most dangerous part of their enterprise began. They managed to swim and stumble ashore and had just fallen exhausted upon the sand, when they were surrounded by a suspicious mob and arrested by the constabulary on suspicion of being enemy spies."
    "Are you serious?"
    "Desperately so. By the time they arrived in my office they were in a terrible state. I told them they had set a splendid example, and were clearly invincible."
    "What did they want?"
    "Oh, an army."
    "Pity. Brave souls."
    "I've just seen their ambassador you know him I think, van Verduynen. Assured me that the Dutch will resist with the same stubbornness and perseverance they have always shown."
    "Without an army," the King added softly.
    "The Belgian ambassador assures me of victory. Says they are ten times stronger than in 1914."
    "And they have our prayers."
    "Not forgetting our own Expeditionary Force," Halifax added a trifle too quickly, missing the irony.
    The conversation was proving difficult, and at first Halifax was relieved when they were diverted by the arrival of the Queen, Elizabeth. Halifax responded to her warm smile by kissing her hand and enquiring after the children, but he was to find no relaxation on this occasion.
    "Edward," the Queen began, 'we are so disappointed."
    The Minister stooped once more. "I'm a little mystified myself. It's not easy to explain but ... I thought I think that Winston's temperament, however unreliable and impetuous, may be better suited for this particular moment than perhaps is mine."
    "You don't sound terribly certain of it," the King commented.
    "I'm not. Certainty is a luxury at times like