Winston Churchill’s other darkest hour

Just a few hours before, Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Pulvertaft, of the Royal Army Medical Corps, had been engaging in small talk at drinks party in Cairo. But now the 46-year-old was 1,300 miles away near Tunis, having been hauled out of the party by an irascible brigadier, dispatched on a bumpy flight across North Africa, and escorted at gunpoint by two menacing US troops to a large white villa in Carthage.

He was whisked into a small bedroom on the ground floor, where he saw an elderly and decidedly portly man lying in bed. ‘He looked desperately ill,’ the pathologist recalled. ‘I thought he was dying.’

Pulvertaft had brought along what he called his ‘travelling laboratory’ of equipment, including a microscope and lamp. He proceeded to take a drop of blood from the man’s ear in order to perform a test. The patient seemed impressed by how deftly Pulvertaft obtained the sample. ‘That sir,’ he said, ‘was competently done.’

In a way, the period can be seen as dark a time for Churchill (pictured) as the events of May 1940 depicted in the new movie Darkest Hour, starring Gary Oldman

In a way, the period can be seen as dark a time for Churchill (pictured right) as the events of May 1940 depicted in the new movie Darkest Hour, starring Gary Oldman (pictured left)

For a vastly experienced pathologist such as Pulvertaft, taking blood samples was routine. But what was anything but routine was the 69-year-old patient himself, the man who both Pulvertaft and the other medical men in attendance strongly suspected was lying on his death bed.

The man was Winston Churchill, and he was gravely ill. What’s more, the Prime Minister knew it.

The previous night, with his temperature at about 101F, Churchill had confided his fears to his protection officer. ‘I am tired out in body, soul and spirit,’ he admitted. ‘In what better place could I die than here – in the ruins of Carthage?

Of course, Churchill would live for another two decades, yet the extraordinary events of the time when he came close to death have never been fully disclosed – until now. Thanks to exclusive access to a private memoir written by Pulvertaft, the complete story of how Churchill survived an illness that would have killed most men can be told.

It reveals that the credit for his recovery should not just rest with Churchill’s personal doctor, Lord Moran, but also with the brilliant and eccentric Pulvertaft.

In a way, the period can be seen as dark a time for Churchill as the events of May 1940 depicted in the new movie Darkest Hour, starring Gary Oldman. In the film Churchill has to decide between suing for peace with Hitler or fighting on.

In fact, Churchill’s illness in 1943 came at an equally crucial time during the war, with his involvement with strategic planning at the very highest level. At the Tehran Conference towards the end of November, he had met Stalin and Roosevelt to discuss the invasion of northern Europe, and at the Cairo Conference a few days before, Churchill and the American President had met Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek, where they pondered how to beat Japan.

It was no time for Churchill to be at death’s door, although by no means the first time he had been seriously unwell. ‘I did not feel so ill in this attack as I had the previous February,’ he claimed.

The February episode Churchill was referring to was a bout of pneumonia that had seen his temperature rise to an alarming 102F. However, according to expert medical opinion, the pneumonia that he was to suffer in December 1943 was far more likely to have killed him.

The credit for Churchill's recovery should not just rest with his personal doctor, Lord Moran, but also with the brilliant and eccentric James Pulvertaft (pictured)

The credit for Churchill’s recovery should not just rest with his personal doctor, Lord Moran, but also with the brilliant and eccentric James Pulvertaft (pictured)

‘There was no doubt that he was very seriously ill,’ says Professor Allister Vale, a clinical pharmacologist at City Hospital, Birmingham, who has made detailed studies of Churchill’s illnesses.

‘The mortality rate from pneumonia in the early 1940s for a man of Churchill’s age [he was 69] was 40 per cent, and with treatment it was 20 per cent. For those age 70 and over, the mortality rate was 40 per cent, even with treatment.’

The truth was that Churchill was overworked and overtired. The crunch came on Saturday December 12, 1943, when he was flying from Cairo to Tunis – after attending the gruelling Tehran and Cairo conferences, he had reported feeling unwell. His plan was to spend a night at the villa of General Eisenhower, and then fly to Italy to see Generals Alexander and Montgomery.

However, while waiting at an airfield, it was obvious Churchill was ill. Lord Moran noted he had ‘a grey look on his face that I did not like’, while protection officer Walter Thompson thought his boss ‘looked ghastly’.

Even the normally indefatigable Churchill knew that he was seriously unwell, and informed Eisenhower as soon as he arrived.

Churchill spent much of the day resting and sleeping, but in the early hours of Sunday morning, he woke Lord Moran, complaining of a pain in his throat and a temperature, which was found to be at 101F.

Moran privately noted that Churchill was in a ‘poor shape to face an infection’.

‘If he is going to be ill we have nothing here in this God-forsaken spot,’ he wrote. ‘No nurses, no milk, not even a chemist.’

Moran knew that he needed help.

THE man Moran summoned was Pulvertaft. There was no better pathologist in the whole of North Africa and southern Europe, and deciding to call on him undoubtedly saved Churchill’s life. There was only one problem: Pulvertaft needed to be flown the 1,300 miles from Cairo to Tunis, the modern city closest to the site of ancient Carthage.

A veteran of the First World War, during which he had been in a dogfight against the squadron of none other than Hermann Goering, Pulvertaft was both brave as well as brilliant. A graduate of Cambridge University and St Thomas’s Hospital in London, he was appointed director of laboratories at Westminster Hospital at the startlingly young age of 34.

When war broke out, Pulvertaft – who was affectionately known as Bulgy because of his somewhat bulging eyes – took command of the Central Laboratory housed in the 15th (Scottish) General Hospital in Cairo.

Churchill is pictured right wearing his famous siren suit and a colourful dressing gown while conferring with General Dwight D Eisenhower

Churchill is pictured right wearing his famous siren suit and a colourful dressing gown while conferring with General Dwight D Eisenhower

It was there that he undertook a remarkable series of trials on wounded soldiers with his own form of crude penicillin that he prepared in ‘broths’. As penicillin was in short supply, Pulvertaft’s ingenuity in making a ‘home brewed’ equivalent saved numerous lives.

After Pulvertaft had flown to Churchill’s bedside and examined the Prime Minister, the pathologist and Moran agreed that the PM was suffering from pneumonia.

‘I spoke with Moran and told him something of the resources of British medicine in North Africa and its deficiencies,’ Pulvertaft recorded in his hitherto private memoir. ‘The British Army had no portable X-ray apparatus, or electro-cardiograph and no modern up-to-date drugs and I had finished all my penicillin.’

Pulvertaft decided to head into Carthage to find what he needed. Commandeering a car, he headed to an American hospital, where he encountered a monosyllabic commanding officer.

‘I guess this is breaking security, but I’m here doctoring Churchill,’ Pulvertaft declared.

‘Yes,’ the officer replied.

‘Have you any sulpha-diazine?’ Pulvertaft asked, referring to an antibiotic drug.

‘Yes,’ came the terse reply.

‘Have you a portable X-ray?’

‘Yes’

‘Have you a portable electro- cardiograph?’

‘No.’

‘Can you get one? Try anyway.’

The commanding officer made some calls, and Pulvertaft soon returned to the villa with everything he required.

But Pulvertaft’s contribution did not stop at finding medicine and diagnostic tools.

Despite all the care, by Tuesday, Churchill’s condition was growing worse. The Prime Minister is pictured

Despite all the care, by Tuesday, Churchill’s condition was growing worse. The Prime Minister is pictured

He was also responsible for summoning two more renowned medics – pharmacologist Gladwin Buttle, and Evan Bedford, a top heart specialist, both of whom would help.

Despite all the care, by Tuesday, Churchill’s condition was growing worse. Pulvertaft would record an exchange with the Prime Minister that reveals that he really did fear he was nearing his very darkest hour. ‘I’m dying, am I not?’ Churchill asked him.

‘No sir, you are not. I thought you were, but you are on the way up,’ Pulvertaft replied.

‘I don’t believe you. Pneumonia, I’ve got. Osler said it was the old man’s friend,’ said Churchill referring to the august Canadian physician who had coined the phrase.

‘Osler had not got sulpha-diazine,’ Pulvertaft responded. ‘It’s a better friend.’

‘Carthage,’ the Prime Minister then said in a failing voice. ‘Not a bad place for Churchill to die. Dido… burning… Dido…’

Churchill’s fatalistic mood was not dampened the following day when he reported to Lord Moran that his ‘heart is doing something funny – it feels to be bumping all over the place.’

The Prime Minister was now suffering from atrial fibrillation, an irregular and often abnormally fast heart rate that is commonly associated with pneumonia.

‘A man feels pretty rotten, I imagine, when he fibrillates during pneumonia, but the PM was very good about it,’ Lord Moran noted in his diary.

Although Pulvertaft had been assured that there were no splinters, the following morning at breakfast, ‘Churchill said something very rude indeed’, which left those assembled in no doubt that using the commode had been an extremely prickly experience

Although Pulvertaft had been assured that there were no splinters, the following morning at breakfast, ‘Churchill said something very rude indeed’, which left those assembled in no doubt that using the commode had been an extremely prickly experience

While the condition would be treated with digitalis by Evan Bedford, at Churchill’s insistence Pulvertaft continued to take blood samples from his ears.

‘You can’t have a count every day,’ Pulvertaft told Churchill. ‘In fact you can’t have any more. Never in the history of haematology has such a mess been made of a Prime Minister’s ears.’

Churchill suggested that there were alternative places from which to take blood.

‘Sir,’ Churchill replied, ‘I have, and readily admit it, but two ears. But sir, let me tell you, I have ten fingers, and, furthermore sir, I have ten toes. And, finally, I have an infinite expanse of arse.’

It was Pulvertaft who also secured something upon which the prime ministerial posterior could be parked during the night if he needed the lavatory – a primitive wooden commode.

‘It was far from impressive, made from packing cases stencilled “Dried Milk,” ’ he recalled.

Although Pulvertaft had been assured that there were no splinters, the following morning at breakfast, ‘Churchill said something very rude indeed’, which left those assembled in no doubt that using the commode had been an extremely prickly experience.

As the days passed, the effects of the medicines secured by Pulvertaft, Bedford and Buttle took effect, and by December 20, Churchill was beginning to convalesce. On Christmas Day, he was well enough to celebrate while wearing a flamboyant silk Chinese dressing-gown emblazoned with dragons.

Speaking of Churchill, pictured,  Pulvertaft said: ‘Not long before he died, I saw him again as a patient. He did not recognise me and he had outlived himself'

Speaking of Churchill, pictured,  Pulvertaft said: ‘Not long before he died, I saw him again as a patient. He did not recognise me and he had outlived himself’

After two weeks at the villa, Pulvertaft returned to Cairo, his job well done.

‘It was a bewildering experience and what I saw was of course greatly distorted by the ominous likelihood of disaster and death,’ he wrote.

‘What impressed me most about Churchill was his capacity for instant and apparently exclusive concentration on the interest of the moment.’

After the war, Pulvertaft became the first professor of clinical pathology in London.

‘His own lectures were as popular as they were unorthodox, and heavily laced with laughter,’ it was observed after his death in 1990. One man would perhaps admire him more than any other – Churchill himself.

‘After the war he invited me to dine,’ Pulvertaft reveals in his memoirs. ‘I excused myself; the anterooms of the great, I felt, were not for me.’

But the doctor would see Churchill once more.

‘Not long before he died, I saw him again as a patient. He did not recognise me and he had outlived himself,’ he noted.

The moment may have been poignant, but it was thanks to Pulvertaft that his patient had not died in the ruins of Carthage. Finally, this remarkably modest man’s contribution to the course of history can now be fully recognised.

 



Read more at DailyMail.co.uk