Churchill’s first spark of greatness
By Carter A. Freeman · Contributing Writer
Winston Churchill. In reading his name, one can almost catch a whiff of his sacred Romeo y Julieta cigars. The cigar smoke is not acting as a mask, but as an outpouring of what burns inside him.
No part of him can be hidden. Each of Churchill’s would-be secret journals illuminated his fiery soul. For every word written about Churchill, there stand 10 more written by himself.
Churchill had an audacious soul. It takes one with such audacity to ignite a light bright enough to blind or warm so many and to burn for so long.
He had a true mandate of the heavens. When did the sparks first ignite?
Before the puff and pomp, he was a short, skinny and rowdy young gentleman. As the son of a disgraced lord, young Churchill was desperate to restore the honor of his name, a name descended from a great general of the past, which bestowed a burden upon the young man.
Inspired by a sense of divine destiny, Churchill decided it was glorious heroism on the edge of the empire that would propel him to the top. Using his talent as a writer, he could have made certain that by the time his war stories were heard in Britain, he would be seen as the most dashing young man on the front.
But for Churchill, there wasn’t much work of “spinning” stories that needed to be done. His adventure for the sake of achieving his ambition was only triumphed by his ambition for a truly great adventure.
But as we follow the young gentleman attaining favor after favor, fighting in battle after battle and winning medal after medal, our young Winston found every attempt to be in vain. He had not yet become a Churchill. His great stories just hadn’t caught on with the British public.
And to make things worse, Churchill was captured. Imprisoned by his enemy at the very peak of his desperation to seem larger than life, he was oppressed and humiliated by the towering walls that barricaded him from his path. Like no other, he felt as though he was a mustang or a stallion of sorts, unwavering in his stubbornness, opposing any sort of breaking or conformity and resisting the vilest of vices: mediocrity.
Only death could part Churchill from his destiny. He threw himself against that beastly wall, climbing its stalk, until he fell over into his escape in the dead of darkness.
Churchill knew that this was his final moment to make or be broken. And so, in a letter only he could write, Winston Churchill challenged the enemy secretary of war to a game of catch.
The secretary, in his anger, almost forgot there was a war, so great was his dedication to settle the disrespect.
Churchill’s leap of faith landed him on his knees, crying out to God for protection and at the bottom of mineshafts covered in coal for days. His journey intersected with the only British man within hundreds of miles, who disguised him and bribed their way past checkpoints. Eventually, Churchill’s leap landed him in the embrace of his British people, who made him their leader in their darkest hour.
And in each of these moments, Churchill reminded himself of one phrase: “De l’audace, encore de l’audace, toujours de l’audace!” — “Audacity, more audacity, always more audacity!”
