The fog over the Thames that morning was not the soft, grey veil poets once loved.
It was heavy, brackish, as if London itself had inhaled the the darkness while forgetting to breathe.
Britain had been an empire.
Now it was something else.
What exactly, no one seemed to know.
The Cabinet gathered in silence.
The chairs scraped slightly on polished oak as men older, thinner, wearier than the portraits behind them took their places.
Chamberlain sat at the head, pale and drawn.
Halifax was already leafing through foreign ministry reports.
Kingsley Wood poured tea without ceremony.
"The issue is clarity," Chamberlain said at last. "Or rather, the lack of it."
He looked around.
"France has changed the tempo of Europe. Germany's tempo is changing with it. And we" he tapped his own chest, lightly.
"Are out of step."
Eden exhaled through his nose. "Because we've clung to rules no one else follows."
