After Harry Hopkins telephoned with news that heartened Britain, Winston Churchill felt, in his words, revived by a "draught of life." The next morning Churchill cabled Franklin Roosevelt to send the thanks of the whole British Empire for America’s immediate help, linking the moment directly to Britain’s desperate wartime need.

Although Churchill was plainly ill with bronchitis, he still worked through the day at Chequers at his usual pace, reading papers and Bletchley Park intercepts and issuing minutes and directives. The house was full of guests and members of his inner circle, including Professor Lindemann, Hastings Ismay, Jock Colville, Diana Churchill, Duncan Sandys, Pamela Churchill, and visiting leaders such as Robert Menzies; Colonel William Donovan arrived on Sunday, while Charles de Gaulle had left that morning. Mary Churchill and Clementine returned from London with firsthand accounts of the previous night’s bombing and celebration.

When Churchill finally came down before dinner in his sky-blue siren suit, the evening took on a festive, unruly tone. Dinner conversation wandered into playful abstractions, while Clementine stayed in bed with a bronchial cold and Mary privately worried about her father’s worsening condition. Instead of resting, Churchill drank champagne and brandy, put military marches on the gramophone, took up a big-game rifle, and marched and performed bayonet drills for his guests.

General Alan Brooke found Churchill’s performance both absurd and memorable, seeing in it one of Churchill’s rare openly lighthearted moods despite the strain of war and illness. Churchill eventually made an unusually early retreat to bed, a small concession to his bronchitis, and his guests were relieved. The chapter closes by contrasting this buoyant scene with Berlin, where Joseph Goebbels noted the new punishing attacks on London and warned that even worse was coming.