James swung around to his left in search of the heckler, but the acoustics had confused him. The voice could have come from any of the wooden benches on that side of the church. He looked up and saw that the speaker too was confused, thrown off balance by what he had heard. Dr West gathered himself and looked up to face his audience.
‘“America first”, you say and I understand that. I agree with it too. America should always put its interests first. But I tell you, this war is about our interests. Only Britain now stands between us and the Nazi menace. If Britain falls, then Germany will control the Atlantic. We could wake up any week now, any day now, with Nazi warships in Boston harbour and U-boat submarines off New York.’
The heckler was silenced by that and the hush of the church seemed to catch the speaker by surprise.
‘And let’s remember that Germany will not be alone in this part of the world. It has friends — in Mexico and Argentina and throughout Latin America. Just imagine what Hitler would be capable of with a network of military bases throughout that continent. I say to you, we would face the very same threat now faced by our British cousins: bombs. A Blitzkrieg could come from the south, German bombs landing on San Diego or Houston or Miami, even, who knows, Chicago. So I do put America first. I put American safety first.’
James noticed that the man’s voice was less nervy now; he was beginning to hit his stride. ‘That’s why we have a direct, vital interest in making sure Europe does not get swallowed up in Nazi tyranny. America cannot exist alone on this side of the Atlantic, hiding away from the world.’
‘Warmonger!’
The same heckler or a different one, James could not tell. Now there were a few cries in response: ‘Pipe down!’ ‘We came here to hear him, not you!’
James noticed that the pastor did nothing to impose order on his church, but was watching the unfolding scene with an indulgent smile.
Dr West chose to ignore the last interruption and press on. ‘We cannot hide ourselves away. We need Europe. Not just to buy our goods. Though I have to say America will only be the leading power of this twentieth century if we sell and trade with the rest of the world. And there will be no trade with Herr Hitler’s empire. No, we need a Europe that holds to the same ideals as we do.’
‘Our ideal should be peace!’
‘Of course it is. But you cannot make a pact with the Devil. And we should be clear what kind of enemy we face. “Know thine enemy”, that’s what the Bible tells us, doesn’t it, Pastor Lowell? And there can be no denying that we face a new and terrible enemy in Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party. America will not be able to live in a world where such brutality holds supreme. As President Roosevelt-’
‘Rosenfeld!’
‘As President Roosevelt has argued so forcefully, it is a delusion, a fantasy, to think that we can let America become, I quote, “a lone island in a world dominated by the philosophy of force”. Our ideals as Americans, the very ideals set out by our founding fathers-’
‘“Beware of foreign entanglements”, that’s what Washington said!’
‘I know what he said: you don’t have to shout his words at me. But these are different times. There was no threat then equal to the threat we face today, a dictator bent on ruling the world.’
There was more commotion now, as a small group to James’s right attempted to start a chorus of ‘America first!’ James fought the urge to stand up, march over to the pulpit and deliver a speech of his own. Did these people have no idea what was happening across the sea? He had left a country already at war, its men either at the front or preparing to defend the homeland; a place plunged into unbroken darkness at night, where people, including him, were digging holes in their gardens to shelter from bombs; where even a two-year-old boy like Harry was told to carry a gas mark lest Hitler attempt to fill the air with poison; where the enemy was a matter of miles away, just twenty-two of them in fact, Dover to Calais.
Yet here in New Haven war was a debating topic, with arguments to be made for and against. This was how Britain itself had been three or four years ago, back when Chamberlain reckoned he could make peace with Hitler. There had been debates like this, plenty of them, at the Oxford Union and elsewhere, with young gentlemen making speeches about whether they would fight for ‘King and country’ and all that. But not any more. That argument was over.
In the United States, however, here in this chapel, the argument was just beginning. He was suddenly aware, more keenly than he had ever been before, that Britain truly did stand alone. Stalin and the Soviet Union had become Hitler’s allies; Italy had joined in, declaring war on Britain a matter of weeks ago; France, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg had fallen to the Germans. And America was still debating with itself.
It struck James with sudden, painful force. Britain was on the brink of extinction. If it were to survive, if its people were not to live under the boot-heel of the Gestapo, they would have to defeat the German menace with their own bare hands.
He didn’t wait for the speaker to finish, leaving him instead to take on the hecklers over whether Roosevelt was agitating for war as an excuse to build up the might of the federal government.
As he got up to leave, he caught sight of something that stopped him in his tracks. Someone he recognized. A face there, then gone. He scanned the congregation again only to see what he had seen before: the same sea of undifferentiated, unfamiliar faces. But the vague sense of recognition, someone spied in his peripheral vision, lingered. He craned slightly, to see around a pillar, but found nothing.
As quietly as he had entered, he retreated to the chapel door and left.
Chapter Sixteen
The gentle tap on the door did not wake him, though the offer of a cup of ‘the Lizzie’s own tea’ was welcome. He had woken early, relieved that today was Monday: that offices would be open, that all he needed to do was find the right secretary, in front of the right card index, who would swiftly run through the list of Oxford children and their new, temporary homes. And soon after that, he told himself, he would have Florence and Harry back in his arms. Today would be the day they were reunited. What he told himself was the hardest part — the shock, the separation, the long journey across the Atlantic — would be over. Whether Florence would see it that way, whether she would immediately embrace him as if nothing had happened, whether the mere fact of his having come all this way would nullify the concerns that had driven her away in the first place — on those questions James preferred not to linger.
He washed and dressed quickly, taking directions for the old campus, a quadrangle of lawns and redbrick colonial buildings that were neither modern, nor ancient in the Oxford sense but rather of an eighteenth-century colonial style rarely glimpsed in England. He found the administrative building and went inside, following the signs.
The Dean’s office boasted an outer area roomy enough for two secretaries and which, James noted, was probably twice the size of Bernard Grey’s entire study. Clearing his throat, he announced himself.
‘Hello, my name is Dr James Zennor, here to take up a fellowship from Oxford,’ he began, attempting his most charming smile. ‘I’ve come about the Oxford children.’
To his great relief, the woman — in early middle age and with a wave of brunette hair so unmoving it appeared to be sculpted from rock — smiled back. Encouraged, he explained his situation, that his wife and child were among the evacuees and that he had come to join them. Having learned his lesson in Liverpool, he asked if she might check her files and let him know where a Miss Florence Walsingham or Mrs Florence Zennor was now resident.
The secretary’s relentlessly professional smile did not waver. ‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible, Dr Zennor. These records are strictly private and confidential.’
He had expected that. ‘Of course. I wouldn’t ask you to divulge the details of anyone but my own immediate family. Here’s my passport, just so there is no doubt as to my name. If my wife is here under her married name, it will be a simple matter of matching me with your records. I’m happy to wait.’ It was an effort to resist the urge he had to push past her and ransack the files himself, but he forced himself to take a couple of paces backward, deliberately relaxed.
‘Sir, perhaps I was not clear,’ the secretary said, her face still frozen into a rictus of apparent delight. ‘The
