Frankie's Letter - By Dolores Gordon-Smith Page 0,17

a little sweet reason and everything will be fine.’

Anthony met Sir Charles’s serious eyes. ‘Wouldn’t it? Look, when I think of the Lusitania, I want revenge too, but can’t we find some common ground? There are plenty of decent Germans.’

‘I know there are, Brooke!’ said Sir Charles sharply. ‘Unfortunately those aren’t the ones we have to deal with. Do you remember sending us papers from a contact called Geiss?’

Anthony nodded. He hadn’t been able to read the papers but he remembered Geiss, a political insider from Berlin, well enough.

‘Geiss wasn’t our only source for the information but what was said was so vital that any confirmation was like gold dust. I don’t have to look it up, because I’ll never forget it. It was notes of what the German Chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg proposes in the event of a German victory. We’re calling it the September Programme, because the notes we’ve got are dated the ninth of September, at the height of the battle of the Marne. We managed to stop them but only just. Since the Marne we’ve been holding on with our fingernails. Bethmann-Hollweg wants control of the whole of Europe. The French, the Poles, the Italians, the Swedes will all be under German domination.’

Anthony couldn’t quite believe him. ‘That’s fairly comprehensive,’ he said with an ironic twist in his voice. ‘What about the neutral countries? Holland and Denmark and so on? Are they going to be part of Greater Germany?’

‘Brooke, there won’t be any neutrals if the Germans have their way. The September Programme talks about economic control for the neutrals. All of Europe will be nothing more than a puppet state.’

Sir Charles was completely serious. Anthony felt his disbelief shifting but damnit, surely all this fight-to-the-death stuff was crazy? Surely this talk of European domination couldn’t be anything more than sabre-rattling. He asked the obvious question. ‘Where does that leave us? Britain, I mean?’

‘Your imagination can supply the obvious answer, but Bethmann-Hollweg dots the I’s and crosses the T’s. He talks about forcing France to her knees – that’s his actual phrase – so that she will accept any peace Germany sees fit to offer, which means they can impose their will on England. That, too, is a direct quote. I tell you, there won’t be a Britain if we don’t win this war.’

Anthony shifted in irritation. ‘That’s impossible.’

‘You can’t see it, can you?’ said Sir Charles. ‘Very few of us can imagine what it would be like to live in an occupied country.’ He leaned forward, his voice urgent once more. ‘Can’t you see the arrogance, the unconscious, self-assured, dangerous arrogance of that? The Germans can occupy Belgium. Why not? It’s only Belgium. France? It’s foreign. You expect odd things to happen in foreign countries, but occupy us? Never. This is England. That sort of thing doesn’t happen here. It’s been a hundred years since this country was truly affected by war and all the fighting was overseas. It’s been a thousand years since we faced a real invasion and Britain, so the thinking goes, wasn’t really Britain then. The Norman Conquest is tucked away in history books and is just a date for schoolboys to learn. Well, if we don’t win the war, there’ll be another date for schoolboys to learn.’

Anthony had to admit that Sir Charles was right. He couldn’t imagine a successful invasion. ‘What about the Empire?’

‘Which Empire?’ asked Sir Charles with a lift of his eyebrows. ‘The British Empire or the empire the Germans propose to carve out of Africa? Mittleafrikanisches Kolonialreich, they call it. If we lose the war, that’s the end of Pax Britannica. We can lose, Brooke. Believe me, we can lose. The Germans are well-armed, well-disciplined, tenacious and courageous and are horribly inventive about the weapons they’re prepared to use. For years they’ve said that a modern war would call upon every device science could provide. That was horribly proved last month. They used chlorine gas. It’s a disgusting weapon. And, just to make things worse in my opinion, the thirst for revenge is so great it’ll only be a matter of time before we use it too.’

‘Do you really think so?’

‘I can’t see us not doing. I’d stop it if I could, but I can’t. Gas is a loathsome thing, but they started it. We can’t let them have the advantage. We’ve managed to hold them and we’ve managed to shake them but we haven’t managed to beat them. Considering they’ve had conscription for years and all we’ve