Missing Nothing

"Too old, too ailing, too tired for the job . . . The blunt truth is that Churchill's continued rule in 10 Downing Street has become a disaster to his party and to the country," shrilled London's tabloid Daily Mirror (circ. 4,000,000). As if to make a mockery of such talk, Churchill put on his liveliest show in weeks.

The old warrior was fascinated with the new .30-caliber Belgian rifle which his government had just adopted for the British army. He had one brought to his office, learned to strip and reassemble it, demonstrated to colleagues how to swing the butt and thrust the bayonet in mock combat. One bitterly cold afternoon, he bundled himself up, spent half an hour on a windswept rifle range, firing the rifle.

In Parliament, Sir Winston was in fine fettle. Laborites charged that the rifle is not as good as the newly developed British .280. Sandhurstman Churchill, "having had some contact with questions affecting rifles over the last sixty years," pointed out that the Belgian rifle had certain advantages over the .280 that less experienced M.P.s might not appreciate. "It has a butt--remember that," he rumbled. "It is very important when one has no ammunition left to have a butt on one's rifle. That does not always occur to the technician"--evoking a vision of the young Churchill swinging a rifle on South Africa's dusty slopes.

Eric Fletcher, a back-bench Laborite, brought up the talk of Churchill's resignation, "on which we shall no doubt now be receiving some authoritative enlightenment." Snorted Churchill loudly: "Delusion." Observed Fletcher: "We shall all know how to interpret that oracular interjection."

But did they? Perhaps Churchill was merely referring to the hope that he was going to give enlightenment. Fletcher kept at it. "All honorable members of this House have the greatest admiration and affection for the Prime Minister . . . Can we be left in suspense?" Beaming, Sir Winston broke in to say, "I am sorry I did not bring my hearing aid," as he dispatched his son-in-law, M.P. Christopher Soames, to get the slender, white, lily-shaped trumpet Sir Winston has substituted for the earplug he first used.-"I don't want to miss anything," he confided in a loud aside. Fletcher tried again. Churchill, his trumpet to his ear, sat back smiling benignly, but said not a word.

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