“You are being very trusting, aren’t you Susan?”
“Perhaps, but I think we can both gain from what I am about to suggest.”
The only sound came from the rain. Susan had played her hand and it was time to see the response from Wallis.
Wallis was quiet and then said,
“Yes, we met him in Germany in ’36 at his mountain house, and they do seem like the natural leaders of the new order in Europe.”
“Wallis, let me assure you—and I have this from the highest authority in Germany—that they have no desires on Britain. It’s completely natural for the world to be divided into spheres of influence. This is the natural order of things. And with an armistice between Germany and Britain, well, one condition could be David’s return to the throne.”
“But why would Germany want David back as king?”
Wallis suspected she knew all too well, but wanted to hear it directly from Susan.
“Well, Wallis, it’s not the English, but it’s the Americans.”
Wallis looked at Susan and a thrill of excitement coursed through her—perhaps it was the cheap sherry.
Susan continued,
“It’s clear, actually—the current clique lead by Churchill would have to go and the more rotten and decayed elements that could be removed, the better it would be for both Germany and Britain.”
At this moment, the obese wife of the American chargé d’affaires appeared and urged both of them to return to the warmth of the lounge. Wallis shooed the cow away with a warm and wonderful smile.
The moment the wife had been dispatched, Wallis said with true warmth,
“Susan, I am so glad you accepted the invitation.”
Susan then accelerated the pace,
“France is beaten; Britain is barely surviving. Mr. Churchill is unpopular at home and abroad. The Germans have offered peace terms to Britain on three separate occasions through intermediaries, two Swedes and a Swiss. The Germans do not want to see Britain damaged. If this mad war drags on, Britain will become a pauper, and we Americans would not like to see that.”
What makes most sense is for Germany and Britain to join forces.”
Susan’s eyes sparkled as he explained this to Wallis.
Wallis, your husband is a wonderful man who was cruelly abused.
“He’s a weak fool with a small brain, and not overly endowed elsewhere.”
Susan ignored this and said,
“This makes it so easy for you to regain for him his rightful place and your rightful place—Wallis Windsor, Queen of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.”
“Well, that sounds all well and good, but I am stuck on this God-forsaken island with my dogs and that’s about it.”
Susan went on, “The first step is for you to consider the Germans’ proposition, which I can tell you Mr. Roosevelt likes as well.”
“Consider it? There is nothing to consider; I’d crawl on my hands and knees to get back to London as a somebody.”
“Good, then this is what you and I need do to get this started.”
They sat down at the white wrought iron table—the rain was increasing and the cold was increasing, but neither cared.
31: Brooke’s Announcement
IT HAS BEEN SAID, “In Victory: Magnanimity.” And this was never more true than by the behavior of the Japanese ambassador on this cold February Tuesday when he spoke to the small coterie in the Oval Office of the President of the United States of America. Like the other meetings, this one was held in absolute secrecy. In attendance were Admiral King; Secretary of War, Henry Stimson; the President of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt; and the Japanese Ambassador to the United States, Kichisaburō Nomura.
Twelve hours earlier, the President had received an evening call from the other side of the Atlantic on the scrambler telephone. He was surprised to hear the sober voice of Field Marshal Brooke. Roosevelt had meet Brooke twice before and had immediately liked the man—Brooke was the antithesis of his master: sober, polite and thoughtful. Roosevelt had commented to Stimson that he understood how the British could hang on with the likes of Brooke in charge.
Brooke said he was sorry to bother the President but he had been asked to call the President to tell him of the surrender of Singapore to forces of the Empire of Japan. Roosevelt feigned surprise about the rapid collapse of the supposedly impregnable fortress. It was clear from Brooke’s tone that Roosevelt was not alone in his surprise. While it was three in the morning for Brooke he sounded completely awake and alert. From the depths of the room, Roosevelt could hear the Prime Minister’s loud and sometimes violent shouting, which the Field Marshal tried to do his best to ignore and to hide from his listener. There was a long pause and then the familiar voice of the Prime Minister was on the line. As he later said to King and Stimson, he had never heard the Prime Minister so drunk. Churchill’s ramblings were a bizarre mixture of maudlin and threatening, the low point of which was when Churchill said,
“I know personally from Marshal Stalin—that he told me—himself to me, to me, personally to me—he has plans to retake Alaska and that you need me to talk him out of it.”
When Roosevelt told King and Stimson of this, King simply shook his head.
“That pompous drunk has no place in high office; he has to go, and go sooner rather than later,” was Stimson’s only comment.
In the meeting in the now-familiar Oval Office, King kept his professional admiration in check, but Roosevelt was more forthcoming,
“Mr. Nomura, I have to congratulate your country on the surprising events of yesterday.”
Nomura thanked the President.
“Well, Mr. President, it was a hard and tough battle, and we were very fortunate and our tough opponents, the British, were very unlucky.
The four men knew the reality was very different from this modest statement. The reality was that the Japanese had been outnumbered by three-to-one: 35,000 Japanese troops to 115,000 British troops. And the British had all the benefits of defense. The classic ratio was four-to-one in favor of defense—according to von Clausewitz, an attacker needs four times as many troops as the defender.
But, all during the hot December of ’41, the Japanese troops in Malaya made daring raids, often using the Malay jungle as an ally. The British commanders—all safely cocooned and pampered and perfumed in distant Singapore—considered the jungle in Malaya to be horrible, hateful and impenetrable, in spite of the Japanese repeatedly using it to outflank them. All though that hot and humid December, the Japanese bicycle infantry rode south, often times on just the rims of their bicycles—the tires on their bicycles having all been punctured, so the Japanese troops simply cut off and discarded the tires. The noise of the Japanese bicycle infantry clattering along the cobble stone roads on the bicycles’ steel rims terrified their enemy, especially during those hot and still summer nights.
Once at the causeway that linked Singapore to Malaya, the Japanese commander Yamashita made the Sultan’s palace at the tip of Malaya his headquarters, and from it he could very clearly see the British troop dispersal on the island of Singapore. By now, the Japanese were masters at flexible, modern mobile warfare, while the British commanders’ dogma was still stuck in the mud of the Western Front of the Great War.
Low on supplies and ammunition, Yamashita was contemplating withdrawing. But, rolling the dice—as all truly great commanders do—Yamashita sent a message to the British and called on the British General Percival to “give up this meaningless and desperate resistance to save further bloodshed.”