Traitors' Gate Read Online Free

another name for it—race suicide. Mark my words, Gregory; Hitler will never smash the British Empire, but our socialist-minded bureaucracy will.’
    Gregory nodded, refilled his glass from the decanter, and muttered, ‘Let’s stick to my personal problem. You know that I wouldn’t ask for a commission unless I felt justified in doing so. Damn it, I held one for two years in the last war and a score of times led men into battle. Surely there is some way you can fix it for me.’
    ‘I know of none. Anyhow, as far as the Army is concerned. Still, I’m dining with the Castletowns tonight. Old Maudie told me that Pug Ismay will be there, if he can get away. Hope he is. Great fun listening to Pug at a mixed party. Everyone hangs on his words while he talks about the high direction of the war and gives away the most deadly secrets. At least, that’s the impression he conveys. He’s a genius at it. But later, of course, if one takes the trouble to analyse it all, one realises that he hasn’t said a damn thing that anyone couldn’t have read in the previous morning’s paper. If he turns up I’ll have a word with him about you.’
    ‘Thanks. What is the latest low-down on the war?’
    ‘The St. Nazaire raid proved a winner.’
    ‘Good; that’s fine.’
    ‘Full details only just been issued. Complete surprise achieved. Navy broke the boom, then ran in an old U.S.destroyer packed full of T.N.T. and blew the dock gates with her. Meanwhile the Commandos got ashore and gave the wurst-eaters bloody hell.’
    ‘That’s spendid news. The very thing the Navy needed to set its stock up again after that shocking business last month.’
    ‘You mean
Scharnhorst, Gneisenau
and
Prinz Eugen
breaking out of Brest and cocking a snook at Dover as they sailed up Channel?’
    ‘Yes. I wonder Nelson didn’t rise from his grave at the very idea of an enemy squadron being allowed to pass the Straits without a battle.’
    Sir Pellinore shrugged. ‘The Boche were both patient and lucky. Waited for the worst possible weather, and it happened to coincide with a breakdown in our air-reconnaissance. They weren’t spotted till they were off the Kent coast, and Dover is too vulnerable these days for us to keep any war-craft there. The real blunder was our attempt to retrieve the situation by attacking with aircraft so late on a February afternoon. The planes had to go in low down and practically blind. The hits they scored were at the price of suicide.’
    ‘Surely there was still time to despatch some units of the Home Fleet, from farther north, to intercept the Germans before they reached their ports?’
    ‘They were covered by successive wings of Luftwaffe the whole way up the coast. After the loss of
Prince of Wales
and
Repulse
last December we dared not expose any more of our capital ships to possible annihilation.’
    Gregory nodded glumly. ‘The news from the Far East continues to be pretty shattering, doesn’t it?’
    ‘Lord, yes! Hong Kong, Malaya, Java, Sumatra, Borneo—all gone in little more than three months. And we haven’t seen the end of it by a long chalk. The Yanks have made a great stand in the Philippines, but they’re now at the end of their tether. Same applies to our chaps in Burma. It’s going to be a toss up if we can even save India.’
    ‘If things are as bad as that it’s a comfort to know that its defence now rests with General Sir Harold Alexander.’
    ‘True! It couldn’t be in better hands. Trouble is, it’s barely a fortnight since they sent him out there; and there can’t have been much for him to take over—only a tangle of broken units composed of poor devils half dead from having fought their way back right up the peninsula. Still, there’s a sportingchance that those little yellow apes may be sufficiently extended for Alex to hold them by the time they get to the Chin river.’
    ‘And how about Australia?’ Gregory enquired. ‘That should be our worst worry at the moment.’
    ‘It