“Of course.”

“On a raid like this one, the cost to us of replacing lost aircraft must be more than the cost to the enemy of repairing the damage done by our bombs.”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Then. .” Charles spread his arms in a sign of incomprehension. “Why do we do it? What’s the point of bombing?”

“Yes,” Bart said. “I’d like to know that.”

“What else can we do?” Digby said. “The Nazis control Europe: Austria, Czechoslovakia, Holland, Belgium, France, Denmark, Norway. Italy is an ally, Spain is sympathetic, Sweden is neutral, and they have a pact with the Soviet Union. We have no military forces on the Continent. We have no other way of fighting back.”

Charles nodded. “So we’re all you’ve got.”

“Exactly,” Digby said. “If the bombing stops, the war is over-and Hitler has won.”

The Prime Minister was watching The Maltese Falcon. A private cinema had recently been built in the old kitchens of Admiralty House. It had fifty or sixty plush seats and a red velvet curtain, but it was usually used to show film of bombing raids and to screen propaganda pieces before they were shown to the public.

Late at night, after all the memoranda had been dictated, the cables sent, the reports annotated, and the minutes initialed, when he was too worried and angry and tense to sleep, Churchill would sit in one of the large VIP seats in the front row with a glass of brandy and lose himself in the latest enchantment from Hollywood.

As Digby walked in, Humphrey Bogart was explaining to Mary Astor that when a man’s partner is killed he’s supposed to do something about it. The air was thick with cigar smoke. Churchill pointed to a seat. Digby sat down and watched the last few minutes of the movie. As the credits appeared over the statuette of a black falcon, Digby told his boss that the Luftwaffe seemed to have advance notice when Bomber Command was coming.