Winston’s War Read Online Free PDF

cleared up, and he left. Now the First Lord of the Admiralty was reclining in his chair within a highly polished wood-paneled cubicle, one of many that stretched into the depths of the shop.
    “I'm sorry to hear you're going to die, sir. Any particular reason?” Mac inquired as he prepared the hot towels. The announcement of this great politician's imminent demise had seemed to require some sort of response, but Mac was always careful not to appear too interested or to become emotional about any of his customers' concerns. They came here to relax, to put aside the troubles of their day, and they found it much easier to accomplish this with someone like Mac who simply didn't matter. It was bred into them, the tendency to display in front of a servant the range of thoughts and emotions you'd never dream of sharing with a friend or your wife. It also helped that Mac had a slight accent and a limp and appeared to be a little stupid and slow, not a complete man, conforming to a certain notion of the working man that made him the safe recipient of confidences, if not of the vote.
    Duff Cooper closed his eyes and allowed a slow exhalation of breath. “I'm not dying literally, for God's sake. It's worse than that. This afternoon I have a very important speech to make to the House of Commons. My resignation speech.”
    “A sad day, sir.” Mac slowed down his preparations for the shave. The client clearly wished to share a confidence with him, which he would find difficult through a swathe of hot towels.
    “God, but I've loved my job. I've sat in the Admiralty and sent the mightiest navy in the world to every corner of the globe. More power and privilege than most men could ever dream of. Yet by tonight I shall be an outcast, despised by people who yesterday hung on my every word and called me their friend. All because of…”
    “Lift the chin for me, will you, sir? Thank you. Because of what, sir?”
    “Damn it, McFadden! We won the bloody war. Never again, we said. Then Hitler comes along and starts building his squadrons of panzers and fighter planes—purely for defense, he assures everyone, and we believe him. Even when he marches into the Rhineland we believe him. Two years later he's trampling all over bloody Austria, and now he's ripping Czechoslovakia to pieces. And still our Prime Minister says he trusts him!”
    His client was tense, his moustache a-bristle. Mac reclined the chair even more to help him relax.
    “Tell me, McFadden, what do you think of our beloved Mr. Chamberlain?”
    Mac didn't care for such direct questions. All his adult life had been spent in the mentality of the gulag, never openly complaining, always seeming to conform, never risking a row. Perhaps that's why he had agreed to marry, not so much to avoid disappointing the lady but more because it was the simplest way to fit into the flow of things. Yet there weren't any simple ways open to him any more. The time had come when even barbers had to take sides.
    “I think Mr. Chamberlain wears his hair too long,” the barber replied softly.
    “God, but what would I do to get near him with a razor,” the politician spat.
    “Doesn't go with the image, it doesn't. That hair—and the winged collar and tail coat. Out of date, if you ask me.”
    “A man out of time.”
    “Will any of your colleagues be joining you, sir?” Mac made it sound like an invitation to sit down and dine. As he applied the first towel, the politician offered up a soft moan and for a moment Mac thought he had applied it too hot, but it soon became clear that the pain came from an entirely different source.
    “They promised, you know. Walter Elliot, and others. We'll be there with you, they said, right at your side. Munich was one goose-step too far. But where are they now? Elliot waffles on about how he can be of more use working from inside the Government than being a leper on the back benches. Leper . That's the term he used. The day before he was talking about honor,