Churchill's Triumph

Excerpt from Chapter 1 SATURDAY, 3RD OF FEBRUARY, 1945 SAKI AIRSTRIP, SOVIET CRIMEA This must be, Churchill thought, the most Godforsaken place he'd ever seen, at the very edge of the earth. As they flew in for the landing he could see an army of women bent over the runway, sweeping away the snow with twig brooms. The runway itself was little more than a series of uneven concrete slabs cast upon the frozen ground, with a control tower that had been thrown together from rough-planed timber. It had a machine-gun nest on top. The insistent grayness of it all burrowed inside Churchill and froze his doubts so hard he wondered if they would ever leave him. Sarah Oliver, his daughter, a flight officer in the WAAF, sensed his misgivings and squeezed his hand. "Still feeling poorly, Papa?" The previous day he'd had a temperature of 103 degrees, not the best way to begin a hazardous journey, not for a man of seventy. But he shook his head. "I never wanted to come here, not to the Crimea. Nothing but lice and typhus plague and... blessed Russians. My God, I hope the whisky will last, otherwise we might end up dying in this place." "So... why here?" "Had no choice. Neither did poor Franklin. A man in a wheelchair has to fly six thousand miles because Stalin refuses to travel more than six hundred. The supreme gathering of the three most powerful men in the world-in a hole like this!" He stabbed his finger at the scene outside. "If we'd researched the matter for ten years with all diligence, I swear we could have found no more miserable spot. Russia in blasted February!" The conference of the three Allied war leaders hadn't yet started and already Stalin had won the first round. "They call you the Holy Trinity, you three," Sarah said, smiling, trying to reassure him. "And Stalin says I'm the Holy Ghost," he replied morosely, "because I'm the fool who seems to be forever flying about." He scratched at a blob of grease on his lapel. "But I think we rather resemble the triumvirate of Ancient Rome-you remember your Shakespeare?" "You know I prefer more modern pieces." "After the fall of Julius Caesar, the three of them-Mark Antony, Octavius, Lepidus-gathered together to carve up the world. Just like us. Then they fell upon each other's throats." It was clear his spirits were not to be easily raised. They'd left Malta eight hours earlier, bound for their ultimate destination of Yalta on the coast of the Black Sea, which in February could freeze as hard as Iceland. The nearest operational airfield was Saki, although from five hundred feet up it seemed an utterly reckless place to land. As the four-engined Douglas Skymaster made its approach it gave another sharp lurch through the cold air and Sarah gripped her father more urgently. She wasn't enjoying this, either. "Why couldn't we have come by ship?" she moaned. "My sentiments entirely, but the Germans departed the Crimea only a few months ago. They left behind a wasteland drenched in blood and a harbor packed with mines. Regrettably, the bastards failed to leave behind a map for their minefields. So, we endure." Then, at last, the tires were hitting the ground, squealing, once, twice, and the Skymaster was clawing slowly to a halt, bouncing on every rut. When finally the aircraft had stopped, Churchill was pensive, remaining in his seat for awhile, staring at the guard of honor lined up at the side of the field, lost in his misgivings. Sarah waited for him, staring sadly at her father in the light of a winter's afternoon. The sparse hair, the sagging jowls, the eyes that were losing the battle against time. He was an extraordinary man who seemed to possess an almost supernatural capacity for revival and for restarting the motor that had driven him full tilt through a lifetime of hazard, but the gears were now worn, they kept slipping, and each time he set out, the engine was forced to race eveDobbs, Michael is the author of 'Churchill's Triumph', published 2008 under ISBN 9781402210457 and ISBN 1402210450.