'Do you suppose the Russians will hold out?' Everybody was asking this.
'If they can hold out till winter they can hold out for ever. But I'm afraid the Wehrmacht will go its usual devastating way. Still it gives us a useful breathing space. And it makes the tediously anti-war _Daily Worker_ look silly. Or it would have done, if Morrison hadn't banned it.'
'And what do we do when we've drawn our breath?'
'God knows.' Ainsley gloomily sipped his whisky of the day. 'We're not a great power any more. Churchill has to pretend that we are, and everyone in the country believes him, or has to pretend to believe him, because there's no alternative. We weren't a great power before the war broke out, but I don't think even Hitler saw that.'
'The Empire-'
'The Empire is a bolthole for the Fleet, that's all.'
'What about the Americans?' I was arguing to keep my spirits up, like whistling in the dark. 'Roosevelt's "Lend-lease" idea in March was surely a significant gesture, not just a business deal to eke out our stock of dollars?'
'Listen, Jim-this is very secret. Churchill's meeting Roosevelt some time this year. I don't know where, except it'll be somewhere in the States. Probably Boston. Some sort of grand, bland declaration will be named after the venue.' (The pronouncement came in August as the 'Atlantic Charter'. President and Prime Minister met afloat off Newfoundland, in Placentia Bay. To have so named their joint statement might have given it an obstetrical ring.)
Ainsley glanced sadly at his empty, unrefillable whisky glass. 'I'll tell you something else secret. Staff talks were held between us and the Americans during last February and March, and naturally there are unannounced contacts between various branches of both countries' Services. The upshot for you, Jim, is that Lindemann wants you to fly to America for a few weeks on Friday.'
The abrupt news of Churchill's adviser directing me to escape from our beleagured island left me without speech. I listened bemusedly while Ainsley prosaically explained that I was destined for the small town of Warsaw in Colorado, where there was a counterpart of the Fungus Institute. 'You must keep this expedition dark, even from your wife,' he added earnestly.
Jean knew I was working with lethal bacteria, not fungi. But she let patriotism stifle curiosity. It must have been the same for the wives of research workers on the atomic bomb.
'How?' I asked.
'Tell her you're going on a month's course, rock-climbing with the Royal Marines. The better to search for unusual variants of bacteria.' Ainsley stood up, looking at his watch. 'We'd better eat, or there'll be nothing left.'
As we made for the dining-room, I said, 'So Roosevelt doesn't intend to let the British Empire disappear off the face of the map?'
'On the contrary, I think that's precisely his object. America will come out of this war as the only country to be reckoned with in the world. Plus Russia, if only she can manage to stave off the Nazis till November. And without America firing a shot, if she's clever. It's much more sensible to step into the ring when all possible challengers have knocked themselves out.'
I could not bring myself to believe this. 'But supposing the Japs attack America?'
'That would be interesting. Hitler might well inflict himself on the United States as an ally. After all, the Japanese are hardly Aryans, are they?' After this horrifying prospect, he speculated, 'I wonder if there'll be any meat tonight? How remote seem the days when I used to cut all the fat off my roast beef.'
I went to America on the Friday. I let my wife into the secret. I instructed her to pass around that I was on a deep-sea diving course with the Navy, too many of my acquaintances knowing that I had no head for heights. An RAF car driven by a pretty WAAF took me through signpostless England to an airfield near Salisbury, where a small Anson was waiting to fly me to another.
Only when aloft it occurred to me that I had never flown before. I could not identify the RAF station I arrived at. I still cannot today. There were a lot of seagulls about, I noticed. At dusk, I climbed with a dozen other civilians into an aeroplane with black paint on the windows. Someone whispered that we were bound for Lisbon. If we evaded the cannons of the Luftwaffe, I thought. There was also the possibility of the device in my brief-case disrupting in the lowered atmospheric pressure and infecting us all with bubonic plague. Beside it lay a test-tube of penicillin mould, which I had cadged as an afterthought from Florey before leaving South Parks Road.
We arrived in the early hours. We saw a city street lit with lamps. We marvelled.
I had two days in which my stomach, enfeebled by British rations, collapsed under the weight of peacetime menus like an old lady in a crush. On the Monday morning I left in a Pan American flying boat for New York.
I found Jeff's name everywhere. _Beckerman Beer, Beautifully Brewed,_ said the hoardings and electric signs, the girl sipping her foaming glass with an ecstasy deserving more worthy stimulus. I was to spend two wonderful days in this Aladdin's Cave before travelling to Warsaw, Colorado. I telephoned Jeff's office.
I was greeted with an explosion of delight. That evening, Jeff appeared at my small hotel in a chauffeur-driven Cadillac with two girls, both of whom struck me as far prettier than the ecstatic one in the advertisement. The car was stuffed with presents-a case of bourbon, boxes of Spam and peanut butter, whole tinned hams, bars of chocolate, packets of chewing-gum. He seemed to think I needed feeding up. Jeff himself had grown much fatter in the eighteen months since I had seen him in the Savoy. He had also grown much richer.
'I'm turning out about a quarter the sulphonamides used in the United States. I got new plants opening every three-four months,' he declared proudly within a couple of minutes of our meeting. 'Chemicals, textiles, pharmaceuticals, I'm operating right across the country, even into California. That's apart from the old brewery at White Plains, here in New York State. I'm opening another brewery this fall in Wisconsin-you see, old man, everyone in America just forgot how to make real beer during Prohibition.' I asked about the Red Crown Brewery in Wuppertal. 'The Nazis grabbed it. But they paid for it!' he exclaimed triumphantly. 'I guess they didn't want to upset the neutrals.'
'I hope the RAF have now blown it to bits,' I suggested cordially.
'Well, it was still there last week despite the RAF. Wuppertal's a boom town, you know. German industry today is stronger than ever.'
'We're led to believe that German industry is on the point of collapse.'
'Then you can forget it.'
Jeff leant back in the corner of the limousine. We were driving along Fifth Avenue. He was dressed with commercial sobriety in a lightweight blue suit and white shirt. I reflected that he must have burst out of his Savile Row wardrobe, and noticed that he still wore handmade English shoes. He had given up Chesterfields, but lit a cigar. The two girls occupied the jump seats, dutifully providing him with an air of adoring incomprehension.
'The Nazi economy's in better shape than any time since Gцring offered Germany guns instead of butter,' Jeff reasserted, 'Hell, they're getting all the butter they want from France and Holland. A lot of Frenchmen and Dutchmen are going to starve to death before the first German feels hungry. But don't get me wrong, old man. Unlike almost all my countrymen, I've had the doubtful privilege of seeing the Nazis close to. I'm one hundred per cent for Britain. Any sane man last summer would have asked Hitler for the best terms he could get. Thank God that Churchill's insane, just like the Nazis say.'
'There'll always be an England,' said one of the girls.
'Even Joe Kennedy sang a different tune when he came home for the election last fall. That was after Roosevelt laid hands on him. I guess no one will hear of Kennedy again, once the war's over. Nor Lindbergh. I'm disappointed with Lindbergh.'