Hitler's peace

At a safe distance I followed Churchill into the dining room. It looked like the interior of a small Cairo nightclub: heavy, red velvet curtains hung off large brass rails, while the walls were covered with a mosaic of small pieces of mirrored glass. The general effect was not one of imperial grandeur so much as a tawdry glamour.

A waiter dressed in red and blue, with ill-fitting white gloves, approached Stalin, bowed his head curtly, and offered up a tray of drinks that the Soviet leader seemed to regard with suspicion.

The table was set with crystal and silver and in pride of place stood a large birthday cake with sixty-nine candles. Checking the place cards, I discovered that I had been seated rather closer to Stalin than either one of us might have considered comfortable. After the incident on the terrace I had a bad feeling about Churchill’s birthday party, which was hardly made better by the discovery that only six places would separate me from Stalin. I wondered if it was possible that Stalin had snubbed Churchill because the prime minister had invited me. And had Roosevelt really snubbed me, too? If the president had turned against me, I could see the evening ending only in disaster. I picked up my place card and went out onto the back terrace to smoke a cigarette and contemplate my next move.

It was quiet in the back garden of the legation with only the sound of water trickling into a large square fish pond, and the hiss of burning storm lanterns-a precaution against a possible power cut. I walked down the steps into the garden and then along the edge of the pond, my eyes fixed on the perfect white moon that lay motionless upon the surface of the water. With only the British speaking to me, there seemed to be little point in going back into the dining room.

I walked past the kitchens to a quiet domed area covered with wisteria and honeysuckle and sat down to finish my cigarette. Gradually, as my eyes became accustomed to the dark, I made out a large water cart and, on the wall, a heavy brass water tap. I closed my eyes wearily, trying to cast my mind back to a happier time-alone in my room at Princeton with just a book, the tolling of the bell in the Nassau Hall tower, and the ticking of an Eardley Norton bracket clock on the antebellum mantelpiece.

I opened my eyes again, for suddenly it seemed I could indeed hear the ticking of that lovely old Georgian clock, a graduation present from my mother. And, fetching a storm lantern from the terrace, I brought the light back to the little ornamental dome and glanced around in search of the sound’s origin. I discovered the ticking coming from inside the Furphy water cart. My ear pressed against the cart’s cool metal cylinder, the clock sounded quite infernal, as if, like the devil’s clock, it was about to strike and the battlefield where heaven had stood, blown to hell again.

There was a bomb inside the cart. And from the size of the water cylinder, it was a big one. As much as a ton, perhaps. I glanced at my watch and saw that it was only a few minutes before nine o’clock.

I picked up the wooden shafts of the water cart and, taking hold of the leather harness, began to pull. At first the cart hardly seemed to shift, but at last, after an effort that left me red in the face and dripping with sweat, it moved and, slowly, began to roll out of the little rond-point dome.

I told myself that I made an absurd-looking hero, in my tuxedo and evening slippers. But all I had to do was keep the cart moving. Just long enough to get it away from the main building. I reached the gravel driveway, my shoes slipping slightly on the small stones and, stopping for a moment, I threw off my jacket before once again picking up the yoke and dragging the thing down to the main gate.

Two of the Sikh sentries came toward me, bayonets fixed, but quite relaxed and looking puzzled.

“What are you doing, Sahib?” asked one of them.

“Give me a hand,” I said. “There’s a time bomb inside this thing.”

They stared at me blankly.

“Don’t you understand? It’s a bomb.”

And then wisely, one of them ran off toward the main building.

I reached the gate, having achieved quite a reasonable forward motion, at which point the Sikh who had spoken to me threw down his rifle and began to help me push the cart.

At last we cleared the gates of the British embassy compound and headed down the wide empty boulevard toward the main part of the city. The Sikh stopped pushing now and ran away. Which suited me fine. I almost preferred that I should do it myself. How much better that I should be remembered not as the man who had saved Hitler’s life, nor even as the man who had scuppered the peace talks, but as the hero of the hour-the man who had saved the Big Three from being blown to pieces.