They stared at him blankly and nodded in unison.
“I’ve come to grips with why we were abandoned at Dunkirk,” he said, and watched the two men closely. They sat stone-faced. “We were deserted, and the whys didn’t make the ordeals any easier.” He looked away. “Maybe if we had been allowed the opportunity to volunteer, that would have made a difference. I imagine that to a man, we thought we’d be rescued the same way those who got out at Dunkirk were evacuated. Instead, we found ourselves alone, every man for himself. Our reception back on English sovereign soil wasn’t very pleasant either.”
The silence in the room was thick, the air suddenly stifling. Hankey started to speak.
Jeremy held up a hand. “Bear with me, sir. I’m not bitter, but I need to get this off my chest to someone representing high authority, and you, Lord Hankey, are about as high as I’m likely to get.”
“Go on,” Hankey said, without expression.
“I understand why our prime minister made the decisions he did.” Jeremy tossed his head with a tinge of disgust. “God knows if our parliament had heeded his warnings years ago, we might not be in this mess.” He exhaled. “But they didn’t.”
“I must interrupt,” Lord Hankey said. He stood, placed his hands on his hips, and turned to face Jeremy. “I cannot let your last statement go unchallenged.” He took a deep breath while Jeremy drew back, startled.
“I agree that Mr. Churchill made the right call at Dunkirk, and that more should have been done to improve our bomber forces, but what you do not know is the extent to which his predecessor built up our defensive capability. Mr. Chamberlain needed time, and he bought it at Munich. When the war comes to our shores, which will happen within days, Hitler will find more fight than he bargained for, thanks to preparations the public knows little about. It could not have been done without active cooperation between Sir Neville and the parliament. Without them, we would not have had our radar screen, our fighter squadrons, or--” He interrupted himself. “I’ll leave it at that.”
While Hankey spoke, images of Neville Chamberlain flashed through Jeremy’s mind. Most prominent was a filmed news clip of the previous prime minister arriving home after a meeting with Hitler in Munich, waving a piece of paper in the air and proclaiming that he had secured “peace in our time.”
“I don’t know how to respond to that, sir,” was all that Jeremy could think to say.
“No matter now.” Hankey waved a hand and took his seat. “Always keep in mind that things are not always the way they seem. Carry on.”
Jeremy cleared his throat and shifted forward on the sofa. “I know our air forces are spread thin. On that awful day at Saint-Nazaire, I saw the large numbers of ships that were mustered, and I appreciate that we convoyed home under the protection of Royal Navy destroyers and submarines. That tells me that Mr. Churchill gave us what he had, and there’s no argument that getting the army back to protect our homeland was an imperative.” He shook his head with a look of awe. “I don’t even like to think of the moral dilemmas the prime minister faces every waking hour of every day.”
He sat quietly to the extent that his two listeners thought he might have finished, but then he continued speaking low, his voice cracking with emotion. “I’ll tell you frankly that I’m incensed that my home, the English Channel Islands, where my parents still live, was also abandoned, but I even understand that we just don’t have the resources now to defend there. We’re in a long war.
“So, I’m fine with the decisions the PM made. But we left tens of thousands of our mates in France, including my brother. Those of us lucky enough to get home were helped by thousands of strangers who risked their lives for us. We owe them a debt we can never repay, and I’m not sympathetic to the notion that France let itself down. Its government surrendered. The people didn’t. They are ready to fight, and I’m ready to fight shoulder-to-shoulder with them.”
Crockatt’s staid expression broke slightly into his ethereal, distant smile. He started to speak. Once again, Jeremy raised a hand.
“Hear me out, please. I’m almost done. I want to be where I can do the most good, and I’m partial to the family that saved me at Dunkirk. I don’t want to be an analyst sitting behind a desk. If I must be in this fight, I want to be in the fight.”
The two men sat up straight. “Your friends in Saint-Nazaire sent the right messenger,” Crockatt said.
“Now comes determining where to place you,” Hankey joined in. “I’ll explain your options simply. MI-5 does domestic counterintelligence. Probably not your cup of tea.”
Jeremy agreed.
“MI-6 is the big deal in British intelligence. They run foreign agents. That’s your classic spy scenario. You’d recruit and manage spies in other countries. I’m sure that section would love to have you.”
He gestured toward Crockatt. “The major here is standing up a new crew—” He interrupted himself with another wave of his hand. “He’s probably explained to you what his unit does, running escape lines, etcetera.
“My new section, SOE, is all about blowing up things behind enemy lines. The way that MI-9 and SOE operate will be roughly the same with a different emphasis. As you’ve probably already gathered, the tension between us is that we’re likely to be trying to use the same assets more often than we’d like to. The same goes for MI-6.”
He
