Sleep in Peace Tonight: A Novel - Hardcover

MacManus, James

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562 ratings by Goodreads

9781250051974: Sleep in Peace Tonight: A Novel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1250051975 ISBN 13: 9781250051974

Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books, 2014

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It's January 1941, and the Blitz is devastating England. Food supplies are low, Tube stations in London have become bomb shelters, and U-boats have hampered any hope of easy victory. Though the United States maintains its isolationist position, Churchill knows that England is finished without the aid of its powerful ally.

Harry Hopkins, President Roosevelt's most trusted adviser, is sent to London as his emissary, and there he falls under the spell of Churchill's commanding rhetoric---and legendary drinking habits. As he experiences life in a country under attack, Hopkins questions the United States' silence in the war. But back home FDR is paranoid about the isolationist lobby, and even Hopkins is having trouble convincing him to support the war.

As Hopkins grapples with his mission and personal loyalties, he also revels in secret clubs with newsman Edward R. Murrow and has an affair with his younger driver. Except Hopkins doesn't know that his driver is a British intelligence agent. She craves wartime action and will go to any lengths to prove she should be on the front line. This is London under fire, and it's only when the night descends and the bombs fall that people's inner darkness comes to light.

In Sleep in Peace Tonight, a tale of courage, loyalty, and love, and the sacrifices one will make in the name of each, James MacManus brings to life not only Blitz-era London and the tortuous politics of the White House but also the poignant characters and personalities that shaped the course of world history.

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About the Author:

JAMES MACMANUS is the managing director of The Times Literary Supplement. He is the author of Ocean Devil, which was made into a film starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers, The Language of the Sea, and Black Venus. He lives in London.

The seaplane came into view just as the winter sun had begun to settle into the English Channel. The plane turned into its final approach, the silver wings dipping to catch the last light of the day, before landing in a long plume of spray on the calm waters of the largest natural harbor in the British Isles. The plane taxied to the landing stage, sending a wave rippling to the farther shores of the harbor.

Brendan Bracken checked his watch. It was 3:50 P.M. The plane was late. They had been due two hours ago. The pilot had kept radio silence through the four-hour flight from Lisbon, apart from one brief coded message to say the passenger was on board and en route.

Bracken knew why they were late. With an important passenger on board the pilot had taken no chances. The four-engined aircraft had climbed to its ceiling height of fifteen thousand feet for the first leg of the journey along the Portuguese coast, and then dropped to sea level across the Bay of Biscay, before flying a dogleg into the Atlantic and then turning east into the English Channel. Portugal was neutral in name, but German agents had a free hand in Lisbon and would have noted the departure of an unscheduled British Overseas Airways flight with just one passenger on board.

The Luftwaffe had already begun to move Junkers 88 fighters to airfields along the French Atlantic coast, but in that first month of 1941 the bases were not fully operational. And in any case, an unarmed, unescorted civilian airliner flying from a neutral country to England was supposed to be granted safe passage by all belligerent forces.

Bracken looked at his watch again. It was 4:00 P.M. It was the word “supposed” that caused his anxiety. You could suppose nothing in the present war, except perhaps invasion and defeat. You could certainly suppose that.

He looked down from the control tower to the landing jetty and saw the pilot and crew leave the aircraft. There was no sign of the passenger. A steward clad in the airline livery—blue blazer, white trousers, and gold buttons—descended from the aircraft and waved to the shore party. He looked worried. He formed his hands into a megaphone and shouted. The word “doctor” floated over the water and up to Bracken and his driver.

“They seem to want a doctor, sir,” said the driver.

Bracken looked at the man. A pool driver from Number 10 Downing Street. Old enough to have fought in the last war but lucky enough to be a little too old for this one.

“So I heard,” he said. “Well, we don’t have a doctor, do we? Come on. Let’s see what the problem is.”

* * *

He was huddled in a brown overcoat in a window seat at the back of the aircraft. His eyes were closed and his head rested against a pillow wedged between the seat and the porthole window. A gaunt, gray face, hollow cheeked, with wisps of hair straggling over a high brow. The steward stood in the aisle with a cup of steaming tea, but the man did not move.

“Been like this since we left Lisbon,” the steward explained. “Said he wanted to sleep. I don’t know whether he’s dead or alive.”

Bracken bent down, placed his hand on the man’s shoulder, and shook him gently.

“Mr. Hopkins, are you all right? You’re in England. You’ve arrived.”

The eyes opened and even in the dim interior of the aircraft cabin Bracken could see that the briefing paper from the embassy in Washington had been right:

Mr. Hopkins is physically unprepossessing. Tall, at six foot two, with thinning hair. Stomach surgery for cancer in 1936 has left him with severe digestive problems and underweight for his height. He looks older than his 50 years. His distinguishing feature is the eyes. They are dark gray, the color of slate, but with a sparkle that signals an inner vitality at odds with his general appearance. A recent profile in the Washington Post noted that if you watch his eyes, you will find the man.

The gray eyes looked around the cabin and then fastened on Bracken.

“England?” said the man. He shook himself, stretched, yawned, and peered out at the dusk gathering over the harbor.

It is like watching a sleepy old cat come to life, thought Bracken.

“Yes,” he said. “Welcome.”

“Where in England?”

“Poole, Dorset,” he said. “If you’re ready, we have to leave.”

“Dorset?” The man seemed to remember that this was his destination.” Of course. Good. Help me up, will you?”

* * *

Harry Hopkins said nothing on the drive to the station. A porter saluted him as he boarded the train, followed by Bracken and two detectives who had been waiting on the train. Once installed in a corner of the compartment he immediately fell asleep again. It was not until an hour later as they passed through the county town of Winchester that he woke up.

“Forgive me,” said Hopkins. “I’ve been traveling for four days. Where are we?”

“Hampshire, an hour from London. Would you care for a drink, perhaps something to eat?”

The chef and waitress aboard the special train had already served Bracken and the detectives mushroom omelettes, a rare wartime treat. They were eager to prepare the fillet of beef for their distinguished American guest, a choice they had been assured he would appreciate.

“Thank you,” said Hopkins, “a little whisky will do me fine.”

“Scotch or bourbon, sir?”

“Scotch will be fine, thanks.”

Delighted to be able to serve his guest something at last, the train steward appeared with a tray, a crystal tumbler, and a small decanter of whisky. He poured three fingers into the tumbler.

“Lots of water, please; same again,” said Hopkins. He pulled back the blackout blinds and looked into the darkness. “I am sorry we were late. I was looking forward to seeing the green fields of England.”

“The pilot came the long way round. It was safer,” Bracken said.

“I know; he told us. Are you drinking?”

Bracken did not like whisky but nodded to the steward and accepted a glass. The two men clinked glasses.

“Here’s to England,” said Hopkins.

“And to the United States of America,” said Bracken.

* * *

The first of the incendiaries landed close to the track as the train approached Clapham Junction station. They fell silently in clusters from the darkness before exploding in flaming fragments that briefly illuminated the back gardens and rooftops of South London.

The carriage rocked in the blasts and the train surged forward.

“Nothing to worry about,” said Bracken. “We will be in Waterloo in five minutes.”

The incendiaries seemed to be targeting the main line into London from the west. Hopkins peered out through the window blinds at the searchlights probing the sky with pencils of light. A curtain of fire arose along the track.

“They must have known I was coming,” said Hopkins.

Bracken smiled but did not laugh. He had been thinking exactly the same thing. What better way to impress President Franklin Roosevelt’s special envoy to wartime London than a raid to demonstrate the firepower and supremacy of the Luftwaffe?

* * *

The White House had hardly made a secret of the mission. President Roosevelt had announced it to the press corps only four days before.

“Mr. Hopkins will go as my personal representative for a very short trip—a couple of weeks—just to maintain, I suppose that is the word for it, personal relations between me and the British government.”

The journalists rose to their feet chorusing a single question: What exactly was the president’s envoy going to do in London?

The president laughed. “You can’t get anything exciting out of this, boys. He’s just going to say, ‘How do you do,’ to a lot of my friends.”

The press corps laughed and the president joined them.

In London nobody laughed. When the prime minister heard that Harry Hopkins was coming to London on the president’s orders, he said simply, “Who?”

* * *

As his train pulled into Waterloo, Hopkins looked out at a station in semidarkness lit only by feeble red lanterns placed along the edges of the platforms. Clouds of steam from engines waiting impatiently to leave drifted toward the arched glass roof. A few passengers were hurrying to board, but most seemed to have taken to the shelters in vaults beneath the tracks. Where wine merchants had once stored their finest vintages Londoners sheltered from the storm above. Not for them the safety of cellars deep in the countryside where the wine had been shipped on the outbreak of war.

He stepped out onto the platform and stopped in shock, as if physically assaulted by the noise. Anti-aircraft gunfire along the Thames Embankment roared into the night, throwing time-fused shells high into the darkness, where they would explode in blazing fragments. The wail of distant sirens, the shriek of departing trains, and the shrill whistles from the guards created a demented symphony that echoed around the steel-and-glass structure of the station.

The charg� d’affaires at the American embassy emerged from the gloom and introduced himself. Herschel Johnson, he said; they had to hurry. Hopkins shook hands with Bracken, shouted his thanks over the din, and allowed himself to be hurried to a waiting car.

The darkened streets were empty as the car crossed Waterloo Bridge. Some incendiaries detonated early, falling like candles from the sky while a searchlight probed the darkness, briefly holding an aircraft in its glare, while others swung their beams to trap the plane in a cradle of light. For a moment the bomber was held like an insect trapped in a web before sliding away again into the safety of the dark. Fires burned along the river, mostly on the north bank, their glow illuminating the wedding-cake spires of Wren churches and the great dome of St. Paul’s. The car raced along the Strand, through Trafalgar Square, with Admiral Nelson on his column just visible in the darkness, and down Pall Mall.

“Welcome to London,” said the charg� d’affaires as he was flung against the visitor by a fast turn onto St. James’s Street.

“Thanks,” said Hopkins.

“You’ve arrived on a good night.”

“Really?”

“Now you will be able to tell them what it is really like here.”

“Them?”

“Your friends in Washington.”

“I don’t have many of those.”

Herschel Johnson knew Hopkins was right. An unelected White House crony who was very free with the public purse—that was the standard criticism of the weary figure slumped beside him in the car. Hopkins was not popular and, however much the press may have laughed at the president’s little jokes about his mission, they damned what some called “the president’s back door to war diplomacy” in the editorial columns the next morning.

Johnson changed the subject.

“You know you’re expected at Number Ten tonight?”

There was no reply. Hopkins was asleep.

* * *

At Claridge’s Hotel a porter in a long green coat and top hat darted out from a heavily sandbagged entrance as the car drew up. He took Hopkins’s bags without a word and led the way inside. Hopkins turned back to thank Herschel Johnson; the diplomat and his car had already vanished into the night.

Hopkins stepped into the hotel and lit a cigarette. The noise of the air raid was suddenly muted, muffled by sandbags and thick drapes. Two large lamps placed at either end of a black marble counter threw a soft light over a red patterned Persian carpet that extended over the floor of the large foyer. Against a wood-paneled wall stood two high-backed armchairs with tasseled cushions. Paintings on the wall featured country gentlemen from centuries past with their horses and dogs. The receptionist, a middle-aged woman in a black suit and white blouse, looked up from behind the counter and pushed a form toward him.

Hopkins felt he had somehow crossed the threshold from a world at war into the comfort and luxury of what looked like a grand English country house.

“Welcome to London, Mr. Hopkins,” said the receptionist. “Would you care to sign here?”

“You know my name?” he said, looking at the form.

“We were expecting you. We don’t get many guests walking in on a night like this. Your room is on the first floor, but it’s quite safe. Make sure you keep the blackout blinds drawn at night. You can have shared quarters in the basement if you prefer.”

“The first floor will be fine,” he said. “Is the bar open?”

The receptionist looked at him with a smile.

“We don’t close the bar these days. If the barman’s not there, just leave a note with what you’ve taken and your room number. You are room seventeen, but take the stairs, please. We don’t use the lift on these nights. The porter will help you.”

* * *

The bar was crowded as Hopkins shouldered his way through. The voices around him were American, mostly London correspondents of major U.S. newspapers he guessed. He had been reading the back file of their reports in the brief time he had had to prepare for his trip, but he didn’t feel like meeting anyone that night. He was exhausted after a journey that had begun at LaGuardia Airport in New York four days earlier. He needed a little more whisky and an early night. What he did not need was journalists buzzing around him with endless questions. He could not understand why the embassy had booked him at a hotel that had become the headquarters of the U.S. press corps.

Hopkins turned to leave. He would have that drink in his room, just one drink, and then … a hand on his shoulder stopped him.

“Welcome to London. Want a drink?”

Hopkins did not have to turn round to know who was talking. Like every radio listener in America, he would have known that voice anywhere. “Thanks, Ed,” he said.

There he was, smiling, with a hand held out in welcome: Ed Murrow, the CBS broadcaster whose nightly radio reports famously began with his signature opening line: “This … is London.” Murrow, who often seemed the lone voice challenging overwhelmingly isolationist opinion in America. Murrow, who had scarcely concealed his disdain for the former American ambassador in London, the pro-appeasement Joe Kennedy. Murrow, the one journalist Hopkins would stay awake all night for. Because Murrow was dangerous. He was influential. He could move opinion and, as Hopkins well knew, he needed to be watched.

The president had repeatedly told American mothers in speech after speech that he was not going to send their sons into another foreign war. The White House had good reason for such caution. Despite the war reporting from London, U.S. public opinion was, if anything, hardening against giving aid to Britain, let alone joining the war against Germany. But Murrow was on a crusade to change White House policy and he didn’t care who knew it.

The two men found a table. Above the hubbub in the bar, the anti-aircraft guns in Hyde Park had started up again.

“Is it always like this?” said Hopkins.

“This is nothing,” said Murrow. “Wait till the heavy bombers come over around midnight. The incendiaries light the way for them.”

“How do you stand it?”

“This helps,” said Murrow, raising a glass.

The two men drank until the guns fell quiet and the all-clear sounded. Murrow spoke of his passion for the British cause and poured out his contempt for a do-nothing Congress in Washington and a largely ignorant and ill-informed public across the country. H...

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