When he mentioned that now, Colonel Bryce nodded his head purposefully, and Churchill said, “Precisely. The editor has since printed a retraction, but no one seems to notice, or care.”
“It was all a mix-up at the paper,” the colonel put in, “but with unintended consequences.”
“Such as?” Wells said.
“A great upswelling of national pride. I don’t think we’ve seen anything like it since Shackleton set sail for the Antarctic, just days before this war was declared.”
It had been months now since any further word had been received from that expedition. Wells, like many, often wondered if the Endurance and its crew were still plowing through the icy seas, or had foundered on some barren shore. It was a pity that such a grand adventure should be subordinated to the exigencies of war.
“This story of the bowmen has instilled a new sense of confidence,” Churchill added. “Preachers are assuring their flock that God is on our side. Children are clamoring for toy archers. St. George sausage rolls are being sold in Piccadilly.”
Wells was still unsure about where all this was going or what it had to do with him.
“To be blunt,” Bryce said, steepling his hands on the desk before him, “the British Expeditionary Force in Belgium was no match for the German war machine. We were out trained, out supplied, out gunned, and out maneuvered. Needless to say, that assessment goes no further than this room.”
Wells nodded.
“But that story, misplaced as it was,” Churchill said, leaning forward in his chair, “snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. What was an ignominious rout—to be even more blunt about it than the colonel here—became a story of steadfast English bravery, and something else even more important.”
“An endorsement from on high,” Bryce said, finishing the thought. “Seven months ago, at a critical moment in the opening days of this war, when things were looking very bleak indeed, that story convinced a large part of the public that the patron saint of England would intervene, if necessary, in human affairs.”
“But surely people realized it was just a story,” Wells said, “that it was simply a bit of folderol, however inspiring.”
“Some did, but many did not.”
“Which is what gave me the thought of publishing something real, but along similar lines,” Churchill said. “It’s not as if we’re out of the woods, after all. This war could go on for years.”
That was a prognosis seldom heard; everyone had gone into the war thinking it would be a matter of weeks or months before the whole ugly episode was resolved and Europe could return to the status quo. Even Wells, a man whose work was characterized by its ability to see and predict the future, had thought so at first. He’d been beguiled by all the happy jingoistic fervor and the patriotic clamor in the streets; his heart had been rent by the propaganda depicting the systematic rape of their ally, Belgium. He had not foreseen, no one had, the trenches that would be dug—hundreds of miles of them already—or the scale of the carnage inflicted by modern weaponry. But sitting in the War Office now, looking at a scrap of blue sky through a smudged windowpane, he caught a glimmer of why he’d been summoned here.
“What exactly is it that you’d like me to write?”
Churchill and Bryce exchanged a look.
“Something to lift the national spirit,” Churchill said.
“Something to confirm what Mr. Machen’s story has already suggested,” the colonel said.
“That God is our ally?”
“That the English soldier is endowed with a nobility of spirit, and the English army with a moral purpose, which will assure us of victory in the end.”
“You’re the only man who can do it,” Churchill urged.
“I should think that Machen was. He got this ball rolling, after all.”
“No, he’s too played out, too compromised.”
“And he writes a lot of stories filled with occult mumbo jumbo,” the colonel said dismissively.
“The Admiralty office thought I was overstepping my bounds,” Churchill said, “and that it was out of my official purview. That’s why I took the idea here.”
“If you are willing,” Bryce said, gathering together some papers on his desk, “we would want you to travel to the Front—ideally somewhere near Mons, in the Ypres salient—and billet, for perhaps a week or two, with the officers of the regiment.”
“The Front?” Wells had imagined concocting a story out of whole cloth, from the comfort and safe remove of his study.
“Yes. It’s important that any dispatches or stories you send back have the seal of authenticity, that they come from the front lines. We want the country to know that our soldiers are in good spirits, and we want our soldiers to know that the country is foursquare behind them, every step of the way.”
“We want fact from you, H. G., not fiction,” Churchill pointed out. “Make no mistake about that. But we want it told with your unmistakable flair for story and invention.”
Could he do it? Wells thought. He was forty-nine years old, for God’s sake, and even in his prime had not been an especially vigorous specimen; he had always put it down to growing up in straitened circumstances, with a diet sorely lacking in wholesome foods. And he could only imagine the howls from Jane at the very thought of his placing himself so deliberately in harm’s way.
“So what do you think, H. G.?” Churchill said. “Are you ready to do your bit for king and country?”
Bryce gently slid the papers—official-looking documents, including a map—across the desk toward him. Wells could spot the empty signature line at the bottom of the form with the heading, all in red capitals, “TOP SECRET.”
He drew the papers into his lap, and thought, How could he ever face his own young sons, both of them away at boarding school, if he shirked his duty now? How, for that matter, could he face himself?
“I only wish I could accompany you,” Churchill said, and Wells knew that he meant it. Winston had always been one for derring-do.
Finally, what would posterity make of it if he failed to come up to the mark? “May I borrow this?” he asked, taking the pen from the stand on Bryce’s desk. The colonel sat back in his chair, hands folded across his abdomen, and Churchill clapped Wells on the back the moment he had finished scrawling his name on the empty line at the bottom of the page.
“Drinks at the club,” Churchill exclaimed, “and I won’t take no for an answer,” as Wells replaced the pen and wondered, What have I just done?
CHAPTER SIX
“You didn’t!” Winnie exclaimed.
“The whole night?” Lettie asked.
Rebecca nodded, watching her mother out of the corner of her eye; she was still sitting on the piano bench, where she’d been playing Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words—something she played whenever most perturbed—as Rebecca had come up the walk to the cottage.
“And what was he like?” Lettie, her oldest sister, said. “Was he tall?”
“No.”
“Thin?” Winnie, the middle one, asked.
“No.”
“Fat?”
“No, not that either. He looks rather like an unassuming, middle-aged solicitor.” She was aware that she was disappointing her audience. “But his eyes—they positively sparkle with intelligence and insight. They look as if they see farther, and more deeply, than anyone else’s.” She certainly felt as if they had peered more deeply into her than anyone else’s had ever done.