“Eric, this changes everything. That went out twelve hours before the King made his speech, so His Majesty must have known its contents. The Canadian Government must have known what Churchill was going to say as well, so the fact this was transmitted means it has official support. Take this speech together with the Daventry message and it’s as clear an indication as we are going to get that we should fight on. Halifax is being completely cut out of the picture.” He paused for a second and caught his breath. “This is going to be an interesting Cabinet meeting.”
“You’d better divide these up between you.” Rachael Cohen put the sideplate with her two pork sausages on it on the table. “Four of you; I make that half each. David, will you do the honors please?”
David Newton exchanged glances with the three other students on the table. With food rationing in place, a half-sausage was a princely gift. The problem was, they all knew Rachael was going short on food because the canteen offered no dishes that met her dietary laws. It wasn’t the canteen staff’s fault, since they were trapped by the rationing system as well. They did what they could and had given her extra portions of veggies to make up for the food she couldn’t eat. Newton reached out and carefully divided each of the sausages in half. It was an old tradition; the person who divided the food up would be the last to choose which portion he wanted. It made for a scrupulously careful division. “Thank you Rachael. Are you sure there’s nothing we can get you to make up for it?”
She shook her head and smiled. “That’s very kind, but keeping kosher is important to me. With everything the way it is, we can either stand up and be counted or run and hide. I hate hiding.”
There was another exchange of glances between the four students. Somehow, they’d get hold of a kosher meal for Rachael. Freddie Williams broke the silence. “Any word from Germany, Rachael?”
She shook her head sadly; the joy of a second ago faded quickly. “None at all. We thought that when the war ended and communications with Germany improved, we’d hear from Aunty Becky and her family, but there’s nothing. My mother is getting frightened. Daddy is just worried and says we should give thanks for being over here where we’re safe.”
“Did you hear Winnie’s speech last night?” Colin Thomas sounded excited. “He tore into That Man like a berserker. Shook him like a terrier shakes a rat.”
Thomas loved his similes and his overuse of them brought a collective smile back to the group. George Jones looked around carefully. There were rumors that the Black Shirts had undercover people hiding in the university. People were beginning to watch what they said, even in private. “I couldn’t believe Winnie was dead. He just wasn’t the kind to just go to the grave in silence. I wonder how he got out?”
“They say he drove from Windsor to Portsmouth and then walked to Southampton and caught the Clipper to Shannon and New York.”
“That’s not what I heard.” Colin Thomas frowned. “I heard he went to Holyhead and took a fishing boat to Ireland before catching a Clipper at Shannon.”
George Jones shook his head. “I heard from somebody in the know that a Yank submarine picked him up from Portsmouth and took him to Canada.”
“Why would the Yanks send a submarine?” Newton sounded doubtful. To him, the story just wasn’t plausible. In fact, none of them were.
Something smelt a little off about the whole business. “Anyway, that really doesn’t matter. The important thing is that somebody’s challenging That Man at last.”
“So, Winston is back.” Lord Linlithgow spoke thoughtfully. “Have we any idea how?”
“The official story is that he was warned of the protective custody warrant issued by the Halifax government and went to ground somewhere in North Wales. Once the heat had died down a little, he got a fishing boat to take him over to Northern Ireland. From there, he crossed the border to the South and laid low again. Then, he caught a Pan-American Clipper from Shannon to New York and got the train from there to Ottawa. I should add there are other stories in the wind, including him going south to Portsmouth and then to the Channel Islands, after which he was taken out by Royal Navy submarine. Yet another version has him going out via France and Spain to Portugal and then another Pan-American Clipper.” Sir Eric Haohoa put the text of Churchill’s message on the Cabinet Room table. “This went out by short-wave radio. The very fact that it was allowed to do so means that Canada at least has repudiated the Halifax government.”
“They have no authority to do so.” Sir Richard Cardew was emphatic.
“What DomCol says is the final word. Their decisions must be obeyed.”
“One of the primary lessons of every commander, be he military or political, is to know when not to obey orders.” General Claude Auchinleck, Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army and thus a member of the Executive Council of the Governor-General of India, spoke very carefully. “The actions of Lord Halifax do not sit well with me.”
“Then resign, retire and leave the role of government to loyal officers.” Cardew spoke nastily, anger and contempt dripping from every syllable.
“Sir Richard, General Auchinleck is a soldier of the utmost integrity. He voices, as is his duty, thoughts which most of us entertain. The purpose of a council meeting is to hear all opinions, weigh all the evidence available to us and make a decision that reflects our considered opinion on what is best for the people whose governance we hold in trust. We are not a rubber stamp for the officials in DomCol and while I sit here, we never will be. Is that clear?”
Cardew grunted noncommittally and Lord Linlithgow let it pass. He was tempted to fire the Cabinet Secretary, but it was politically unwise to do so. The man represented a significant following outside this room and removing him from the bounds of collective responsibility would be counterproductive. “And so we move to the key business of the day. The Daventry Message. Sir Martyn, will you read the key part of His Majesty’s message out please?”
“The Powers of the Crown will pass through the direct Representative
to the Col/Dom Cabinet in Committee in trust George VI Rex.”
“What the devil does that mean?” HH was bemused.
Sir Martyn looked at Lord Linlithgow and got a brief nod. “Well, ‘The Powers of the Crown’ are constitutional and laid down the Constitution and the Common Law; there is no real argument here. The next bit, ‘will pass through the direct Representative to the Col/Dom’. The direct representative in the case of the Dominions is the Governor General, and the Crown’s powers pass through him anyway. Col/Dom is a simple contraction of Colonial and Dominion. We’ve used it that way ourselves this morning, so there is not much to argue about there either. It’s the last few words, ‘to the Col/Dom Cabinet in Committee in trust George VI Rex,’ where all the trouble begins. The way this message was sent, there is no punctuation in it and inserting commas in the passage allows it to be manipulated in any number of ways.
“If we add a comma after ‘Committee’, the message now reads ‘to the Col/Dom Cabinet in Committee, in trust George VI Rex.’ By associating ‘Col/Dom’ with ‘Cabinet’ it transfers power to the local authorities. Furthermore, by reducing the words “in trust’ to a parting salute, it also removes a possible condition imposed by the His Majesty on that power. Essentially, this echoes the Canadian repudiation of the Halifax government. We should bear in mind that this message went out twelve hours after Churchill’s message from Canada. I believe it is adding His Majesty’s stamp of approval on the Canadian actions and encouraging all the other Dominions to do the same.”