Barbara Castle’s chaperone in this otherwise all male and largely hostile environment, was Eirene Lloyd White, the fifty-four year old Belfast-born Member of Parliament, since 1950 for East Flint. Educated at St Paul’s Girls’ School and Somerville College, like Barbara Castle she had won a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. Later she had studied for a year in Heidelberg before crossing the Atlantic to work for the New York Public Library. During Hitler’s War she had joined the civil service, and afterwards become the political correspondent of the Manchester Evening News and worked for the BBC. In 1948 she had married another House of Commons lobby correspondent, John Cameron White. In her own way she was every inch the feminist that Barbara Castle was, but unlike Barbara Castle she was a political moderate in most things. As long ago as 1953 she had resigned from the National Executive Council of the Labour Party in disgust because of the constant internecine warring between the left and right.
“Let me welcome our guests,” Margaret Thatcher began. “Before we begin I would like to explain for the benefit of Mr Powell, and Mrs Castle and Mrs White, how we go about our business in Cabinet.” She ignored Airey Neave’s rolling eyes; knowing he would not dare to be such an incorrigible rogue if he was not that horribly rare thing, a living national treasure. Her forty-eight year old friend had escaped from Colditz, read the indictment of their heinous crimes to the major Nazi war criminals at the Nuremburg Tribunal, and had been her indispensible chief of staff in the months leading up to her unexpected assumption of the Premiership. Airey and Ian Macleod, the often angry, impatient, remarkable man who had held the Conservative party together in the last year, were her staunchest confederates in the Party and in Cabinet, the men she trusted most in the World after a certain Fighting Admiral who, regrettably from a selfishly personal viewpoint, had unavoidably been detained on vital duty overseas virtually since the day they had met.
“I like to open Cabinet with a few thoughts of my own; particularly if there have been important developments overnight which aren’t necessarily included for discussion as an agenda item. The first formal item on today’s agenda is a briefing by the First Sea Lord on the war situation…”
“Excuse me, Prime Minister,” Barbara Castle said with a wavering stridency.
“Yes, Mrs Castle?” Margaret Thatcher was not incommoded by the interjection. In fact, she had hoped to engage each of the ‘observers’ at some stage that morning. There was no point attending a meeting unless one had something to contribute; and she badly wanted backbenchers to re-engage with her Government before Parliament reconvened in a little over a fortnight. “What is it?”
“I would like to ask a question.”
The majority of the Angry Widow’s ministers were grumbling under their breath.
“By all means, Mrs Castle.”
Barbara Castle was a sparsely made, not over-large woman with auburn to ginger hair and a habit of leaning towards an opponent with her jaw jutting defiance. What she lacked in feral intelligence she made up for many times over in political mouse, and cunning of a sort that had, and no doubt would in the future, trip up a lot of people who ought to have known better than to underestimate her formidable powers. She and the other two ‘observers’ were seated along the wall close to the left hand head of the Cabinet table. Now she rose to her feet.
“I would like to know what this country’s policy is on the first use of nuclear weapons, Prime Minister?” This asked Barbara Castle fixed Margaret Thatcher with an unforgiving, unrelenting glare.
“That is a very pertinent question, Mrs Castle,” the younger woman replied. She did not bother to smile, her stare met steel with more steel, of the cold blue tempered variety. “It would be true to say that this country has no policy on the first use of nuclear weapons.”
“That is a disgrace!”
“No, it is pragmatic, Mrs Castle. The United Kingdom does not have such a policy because if we had, then our enemies would know our minds. Our enemies would be able to make their plans based on that knowledge of our policy. Forgive me, I mean this in no way to be condescending or patronising, but I believe that what you are really asking me is whether I am currently contemplating a retaliatory strike in response to the attack on Malta last week?”
The older woman nodded jerkily, visibly feeling herself to have been on the wrong end of a very ‘condescending’ and ‘patronising’ put down.
“Now you are going to tell me that you can’t answer my question because of ‘security concerns’ or some such clap-trap!”
“No,” the Angry Widow said coolly. Strong men in the room blanched, fearfully, rather guiltily anticipating that something unpleasant was about to transpire. “However, I will tell you what I said to President Kennedy last Friday.” She let this sink in a moment. “I advised him not to retaliate on our behalf, or because of the loss of so many brave Americans on the USS Enterprise and the USS Long Beach, for two reasons. Firstly, I was not convinced it was possible to target the wicked criminals who launched the attack without killing many thousands, perhaps, millions of innocent people. Secondly, I pointed out to him that in the event that we continue letting off nuclear weapons in the atmosphere sooner or later we will so poison the World that life itself will be rendered impractical. I further emphasised to President Kennedy that it was my personal view that I could see no circumstances in which, at this time, a retaliatory strike, even of a very limited nature, was consistent with the pursuance of a sane approach to international affairs. For what it was worth I also informed him that although the Government of the United Kingdom has no formal ‘first use’ policy or doctrine, that there was no conceivable scenario in which I personally would authorise the first use of British nuclear weapons.”
Silence.
The sound of pins dropping on a carpet ten miles away would have been deafening.
“I hope that answers your question, Mrs Castle?” The Angry Widow inquired flatly. The question was entirely rhetorical and with a brusque, unusually disconcerted shake of her head the older woman resumed her seat.
Chapter 15
Lieutenant-Commander Peter Christopher was a little shocked to discover that Captain David Penberthy — the man whom he still regarded as the Talavera’s rightful, legitimate commanding officer — was a gaunt, prematurely aged version of his old self. His cheeks were sunken, his eyes almost hollow and he had about him the look of a cancer patient in terminal decline. Peter very nearly groaned aloud with relief when his former captain cracked a pleasantly surprised smile and struggled into a more upright position on the bed in the crowded sunny, south-facing ward. Around him were officers and men — the majority American survivors from the USS Long Beach and the USS Enterprise — for whom, like David Penberthy, the crisis had passed.
Peter tried very hard not to stare at the heavily bandaged stump where his former captain and mentor’s left foot had been; until an anti-tank round fired by Red Dawn insurgents close inshore off the island of Lampedusa had removed it at the ankle and showered HMS Talavera’s flying bridge with shrapnel. He had awakened in a cold sweat a couple of times since that night. The carnage and chaos on the destroyer’s bridge, the flash and the shuddering crash of the broadsides of the other ships in the gun line, the thudding, crunching, screeching impacts of solid shot against the thin plates of Talavera’s sides, and the blood glistening evilly in the light of the half-moon every few seconds when the main battery unleashed a new salvo. He had gone to the bridge rail, stepping over the bodies, discovered HMS Puma drifting out of the line, the water around her boiling and erupting with exploding cannon shells and near misses, helpless as the shore batteries concentrated their fire on her. He had shut out the cries of the dead and the maimed and without a moment’s hesitation steered Talavera between her wounded consort and the withering fire…