Winston's War_ Churchill, 1940-1945 - Max Hastings [49]
His personal staff’s awareness of the prime minister’s burden caused them to forgive his outbursts of discourtesy and intemperance. Ministers and commanders were less sympathetic. Their criticisms of Churchill’s behaviour were human enough, and objectively just. But they reflected lapses of imagination. Few men in human history had borne such a load, which was ever at the forefront of his consciousness, and even subconsciousness. Dreams drifted through his sleeps, though he seldom revealed their nature to others. What is astonishing is that, in his waking hours, he preserved such gaiety. Although an intensely serious man, he displayed a capacity for fun as remarkable as his powers of concentration and memory, and his unremitting commitment to hard labour. Seldom, if ever, has a great national leader displayed such power to entertain his people, stirring them to laughter even amid the tears of war.
Churchill never doubted his own genius (subordinates often wished that he would). But there were many moments when his confidence in a happy outcome faltered, amid bad tidings from the battlefield. He believed that destiny had marked him to enter history as the saviour of Western civilisation, and this conviction coloured his smallest words and deeds. When a Dover workman said to his mate, as Churchill passed, “There goes the bloody British Empire,”164 the prime minister was enchanted. “Very nice,” he lisped to Jock Colville, his face wreathed in smiles. But, in profound contrast to Hitler and Mussolini, he preserved a humanity, an awareness of himself as mortal clay, which seldom lost its power to touch the hearts of those who served him, just as the brilliance of his conversation won their veneration.
He was fearless about everything save the possibility of defeat. Hurrying from Downing Street to the Annexe with Colville one day, in his customary uniform of short black coat, striped trousers and white-spotted blue bow tie, they heard the whistle of descending bombs. The young official took cover as two explosions resounded nearby. He rose to observe the prime minister still striding up King Charles Street, gold-headed walking stick in hand.
Disraeli said: “Men should always be difficult. I can’t bear men who come and dine with you when you want them.” When taking dictation, Churchill, with his tempestuous moods and unsocial hours, certainly fulfilled this requirement. The prime minister’s typists were expected instantly to comprehend the meaning of some mumbled injunction, such as “Gimme ‘Pug’!”165 They were required to respect every nuance of his precision of language. Alan Brooke was once outraged when Churchill shouted down the telephone to him, “Get off, you fool!” It required intercession by the staff to soothe the general’s ruffled feathers with the explanation that the prime minister, who was in bed when he called Brooke, had been telling Smokey the black cat to stop biting his toes. Jock Colville and the king’s assistant private secretary Tommy Lascelles, lunching together one day, debated “whether very great men166 usually had a touch of charlatanism in them,” and of course they were thinking of the prime minister. Some fastidious souls recoiled from Churchill’s perceived ruthlessness, though U.S. military attaché Raymond Lee applauded him as “an unscrupulously rough-and-tumble fighter167 … perfectly at home in his dealings with Hitler and Mussolini.”
Churchill was self-obsessed, yet displayed spasms of concern for his intimates just often enough to prevent them from becoming disgusted by his selfishness. After one outburst, he suddenly put his hand on private secretary John Martin’s shoulder