Traitors' Gate

      Gregory nodded, refilled his glass from the decanter, and muttered, 'Let's stick to my personal problem. You know that I wouldn't ask for a commission unless I felt justified in doing so. Damn it, I held one for two years in the last war and a score of times led men into battle. Surely there is some way you can fix it for me.'

      'I know of none. Anyhow, as far as the Army is concerned. Still, I'm dining with the Castletowns tonight. Old Maudie told me that Pug Ismay will be there, if he can get away. Hope he is. Great fun listening to Pug at a mixed party. Everyone hangs on his words while he talks about the high direction of the war and gives away the most deadly secrets. At least, that's the impression he conveys. He's a genius at it. But later, of course, if one takes the trouble to analyse it all, one realizes that he hasn't said a damn thing that anyone couldn't have read in the previous morning's paper. If he turns up I'll have a word with him about you.'

      'Thanks. What is the latest low-down on the war?'

      'The St. Nazaire raid proved a winner.'

      'Good; that's fine.'

      'Full details only just been issued. Complete surprise achieved. Navy broke the boom, then ran in an old U.S. destroyer packed full of T.N.T. and blew the dock gates with her. Meanwhile the Commandos got ashore and gave the wursteaters bloody hell.'

      'That's splendid news. The very thing the Navy needed to set its stock up again after that shocking business last month.'

      'You mean Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen breaking out of Brest and cocking a snook at Dover as they sailed up Channel?'

      'Yes. I wonder Nelson didn't rise from his grave at the very idea of an enemy squadron being allowed to pass the Straits without a battle.'

      Sir Pellinore shrugged. 'The Boche were both patient and lucky. Waited for the worst possible weather, and it happened to coincide with a breakdown in our air reconnaissance. They weren't spotted till they were off the Kent coast, and Dover is too vulnerable these days for us to keep any war craft there. The real blunder was our attempt to retrieve the situation by attacking with aircraft so late on a February afternoon. The planes had to go in low down and practically blind. The hits they scored were at the price of suicide.'

      'Surely there was still time to despatch some units of the Home Fleet, from farther north, to intercept the Germans before they reached their ports?'

      'They were covered by successive wings of Luftwaffe the whole way up the coast. After the loss of Prince of Wales and Repulse last December we dared not expose any more of our capital ships to possible annihilation.'

      Gregory nodded glumly. 'The news from the Far East continues to be pretty shattering, doesn't it?'

      'Lord, yes! Hong Kong, Malaya, Java, Sumatra, Borneo all gone in little more than three months. And we haven't seen the end of it by a long chalk. The Yanks have made a great stand in the Philippines, but they're now at the end of their tether. Same applies to our chaps in Burma. It's going to be a toss up if we can even save India.'

      'If things are as bad as that it's a comfort to know that its defence now rests with General Sir Harold Alexander.'

      'True! It couldn't be in better hands. Trouble is, it's barely a fortnight since they sent him out there; and there can't have been much for him to take over only a tangle of broken units composed of poor devils half dead from having fought their way back right up the peninsula. Still, there's a sporting chance that those little yellow apes may be sufficiently extended for Alex to hold them by the time they get to the Chin river.'

      'And how about Australia?' Gregory enquired. 'That should be our worst worry at the moment.'

      'It would be, if the U.S. were not prepared to take Australia under her wing. There's some reason, too, to believe that the Jap effort down in that direction is petering out. The United States Navy made them pay a very heavy price for their landings in New Guinea; and Australia is too big a mouthful for them to try to swallow. That is, unless they're prepared to go over to the defensive on all their other fronts.'

      'The Australians don't seem to see things that way.'

      'They would if it wasn't for that Socialist feller Curtin that they've saddled themselves with as Prime Minister. He's usin' the crisis as a political weapon telling them all that Churchill and his Tory pals would rather not risk the skin off a little finger than raise a hand to save Australia from the Japs. It's a thunderin' lie, of course. All their troops have been released from the Middle East; and when Churchill was in Washington he secured a positive assurance from the President that, if need be, American troops should be sent to Australia instead of to Europe, and would defend the country to the last ditch. The lies that are being put out are Australian Labour's cover-up for their party's criminal negligence in having refused to introduce National Service, although it was clear that the Japs might enter the war against us at any time.'

      Gregory nodded. 'It's good to think that our folk down under are in no real danger. Now; what's the latest low-down about Russia?'

      'Oh, they never stop yellin' that they'll have to chuck their hand in unless we can take the pressure off them by openin' a Second Front.'

      'Our new commitments against the Japs must have ruled that out for the time being.'

      'Lord, yes. Having to make good the gaps left in the Middle East by the withdrawal of the Australian divisions, and putting some teeth into the defence of India, forced us to scrape the bottom of the bucket.'

      'Still, the Russians must know that American troops have been arriving in Northern Ireland for the past two months; so it's very understandable that they should be calling for an Anglo-American landing on the Continent. And I suppose the build-up might become big enough to justify that some time this summer?'

      'Not a hope. It takes more than a lot of bodies to launch a great amphibious operation. You ought to know that. They've got to be specially trained; Then there's the Q side. Think of all the millions of tons of ammunition and stores required.'

      'Now the huge industrial plants in the United States are fully geared for war, surely they can take care of all material requirements?'

      'Ah, that's what the public think. Fact is we've more headaches about equipment and supplies than we had last year. Before the Yanks came in they’ were giving us everything they'd got. Now they are having to think of themselves as well, and the war they're fightin' in the Pacific. It's meant that we'll not have anything like the numbers of aircraft and tanks we had hoped to have by the summer. Then there's the question of all these newfangled landin' craft. Hundreds would be required, and as yet we've got 'em only in dozens. That and shipping are the worst snags. Even if the Yanks could let us have the goods it's doubtful now if we could get them over.'

      Ts the shipping situation really all that desperate?'

      'Desperate's the word or will be if sinkings continue at their present rate.'

      'I thought the convoy system had taken the worst sting out of the U-boats.'

      'So it has, in British controlled waters. But we haven't yet persuaded our friends on the other side of the wisdom of adopting it. Doenitz is cashin' in on that. Since Christmas his U-boat packs have been operating almost within sight of New York harbour. In January he was getting three ships a day; now it's up to nine. This month he's made a record killing. Eight hundred thousand tons sunk already. If he can keep that up God knows if we'll ever be able to launch an assault against Hitler's Europe. Anyhow, you can count it out for 1942.'