CHAPTER 338: WHAT AM I TO TELL MY CONSTITUENTS?

London woke to headlines that tried to sound calm.

Pact Ensures Calm on the Continent, said The Times.

Berlin and Moscow Promise Stability, said The Daily Mail.

On street corners, men in hats read with lips pressed thin.

Women glanced at the newsbills and kept walking.

Tram bells chimed.

The air tasted like rain that wouldn’t fall.

By noon, the House of Commons was a furnace.

Members packed the green benches so tightly that coats creased and elbows touched.

The air smelled of wool, tobacco, and impatience.

Clerks moved like cautious birds beneath the galleries.

Above, the press leaned in with pencils ready.

The Speaker rose. "Order! Order! The House will come to order."

The noise broke into shouts, then settled.

The Prime Minister stood.

Neville Chamberlain’s face was pale but composed, his voice the same measured instrument that had soothed a thousand rooms.

He held the dispatch box as if it were a lectern at a parish meeting.

"Honourable Members," he began, "the agreement between Germany and the Soviet Union has given Europe a chance to reconsider its fears. We have seen, in this last week, what can be achieved when nations choose negotiation over confrontation. I would counsel the House against hasty conclusions and ungoverned alarm."

A soft wave of "Hear, hear," moved across the government benches.

A few opposition members scoffed.

Two backbenchers exchanged a look that said.

We have heard this all before.

Chamberlain went on. "We are informed that the pact is an undertaking of non-aggression. It is not, I am told, a design for partition or conquest. We must not, therefore, treat it as such. This government will continue to pursue peaceful remedies and guard against unnecessary provocation. Let us remember the bitter lesson of 1914, when panic and pride marched us where reason would not."

Murmurs.

A cough.

A rustle of papers.

The Prime Minister’s tone never lifted; it held steady, like a hand on a skittish horse.

Clement Attlee rose from the front bench opposite.

He was not a man for thunder, and that was his strength today. "No one in this House, Prime Minister, wishes for panic," he said in a dry voice that carried better than it should have.

"But there is a difference between calm and complacency. If this pact is merely peace, why is it signed without consultation? Why are there fresh troop movements near the Polish frontier? Why are we told they are exercises when the patterns match deployments? I ask not for hysteria, but for clarity."

"Quite right!" someone shouted from Labour’s side.

On the government benches a few heads shook.

A young Conservative muttered, "He sees ghosts in ledgers."

Chamberlain answered without blinking. "The Honourable Gentleman asks for clarity; I can only share the information we have. Our embassies report routine movements. Our mission in Berlin assures us this is not a prelude to aggression. We must not advertise suspicion as policy."

A little laughter, and then sharper voices.

"Convenient!" "How do we know?"

The Speaker stood again. "Order!"

From the second row on the Conservative side, Winston Churchill rose.

The sound changed.

Not a cheer, not a groan; something expectant and wary, like the intake of a single large breath.

He held no papers.

He did not look at the dispatch box.

He looked at the House.

"We have before us, Mr. Speaker, a piece of paper between two regimes that agree on very little besides appetite," he said. "We congratulate ourselves. We shout ’peace’ because the guns have not yet sounded. But we have, I fear, mistaken silence for safety. If two beasts decide not to bite each other for a season, one must ask what they intend to bite instead."

A scatter of laughter from the opposition; loud "Oh!"s from the government side.

A junior minister called, "The Right Honourable Gentleman cannot help himself."

Churchill didn’t look at him.

"We have watched, month after month, a steady consumption of Europe. Austria passed without a shot fired. Czechoslovakia was carved first the edge, then the meat. Each slice was presented to us as proof of moderation. And now an understanding with the very power we were told could never be reconciled." He paused. "What shall we call the next serving? Security?"

Chamberlain stiffened. "If my Right Honourable Friend wishes to inflame the House, he is succeeding," he said.

"But he has not offered remedies. He offers warnings, forever warnings, as though shouting ’Fire!’ were the same as putting out a blaze."

Churchill nodded once. "I do offer a remedy. It is unglamorous but necessary. Prepare. Arm. Do not tell the country that a promise between Berlin and Moscow will keep them safe. It will keep them surprised."

Shouts burst

"Warmonger!" from the back.

Others answered "He is right!" and the benches rocked with noise.

The Speaker pounded the table. "Order! The House will maintain order."

Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary, rose, smooth as varnish. "If I may," he said, in the tone of a man coaxing a donkey across a bridge, "the government has no intention of being either deceived or provoked. We are in close contact with our partners. We are strengthening our air defenses and our industry. But we cannot should not commit this nation to a path of alarm based on conjecture. There are reports and counter-reports. It is the duty of His Majesty’s Government to weigh them soberly."

An older Labour member called out, "Soberly, yes slowly, no!"

Laughter.

Halifax smiled as if the line had been intended for his pleasure. "I understand the impatience of Honourable Members. But impatience is not a policy."

A Liberal rose from the cross-benches.

He had the look of a man who had been right too early before. "What am I to tell my constituents?" he asked.

"That we are safe because Germany and Russia have decided to be friends? That last week’s enemies are now the guardians of Europe’s calm? They ask me why the treaty is secret in parts. I tell them we do not know. They ask me how one trusts such sudden courtesies. I tell them we must hope. But hope is not the same as planning."

"Here, here!" from scattered seats.