The war room was a shell.
Beneath the shattered ruins of Westminster, the Prime Minister's underground command bunker groaned with the weight of history, dust bleeding from the cracks in concrete like the slow death of empire.
Overhead, the muffled echo of bombs still rumbled, distant now, but never far.
A single oil lamp flickered atop the steel table.
Generators had failed.
The hum of modernity had been replaced with breath, sweat, and silence.
On the far wall, the Union Jack hung limp and soiled with ash.
Prime Minister Clement Attlee sat with both hands clenched over his cane, lips pursed, eyes hollow.
His once-tidy suit hung loose on his frame.
The ordeal had aged him ten years in as many weeks.
"Gentlemen," he said finally, voice like sandpaper.
"We are not here to debate victory. We are here to determine what shape our defeat shall take."
Gasps. Some from shock. Some from relief.
