Give Us This Day (4 page)

Two

Paper Ambush

I
t was difficult to rid himself of a sense of melodrama as he went about his preparations, beginning with the drafting of the leaflet and ending, an hour or so before the procession was due to pass the corner-site, on the day itself. It was as though all the time he was planning, counselling, conniving, he was standing off watching himself masquerade as a nihilist, a Balkan assassin or a bearded anarchist resolved upon some stupendous masterstroke instead of what it was—an insignificant discord in the national overture.

More than once, as the day drew near, he came near to admitting he was a pompous ass to involve either himself or Romayne in the charade, yet he persisted, partly because he had his full share of Swann obstinacy, but more because, below the level of self-mockery, he acknowledged his cause was just. And then, when every last detail had been perfected, and he was alone in the airless little annexe, partitioned off from the empty showrooms, excitement liberated him from the sense of the ridiculous and he told himself that he would not have been anywhere else. But it still nagged him that Romayne had insisted, as the price of his involvement, on becoming one of the four selected for the perpetration of the actual deed.

They had all wanted a part, even if it was limited to throwing a handful of leaflets apiece and then running for it, as Giles and his chosen three planned they should. But four, he said, was the maximum number within a safety limit. Their escape route lay down four flights of stairs, into the corridor between shop and staff entrance, past the janitor’s cubicle and out into Catherine Street, there to lose themselves in the crowd. The plan was as perfect as he could make it. There was a more than even chance that they would all be clear away before the distributing point was located and searched, for Soper, himself an employee of Beckwith’s, laid long odds that Meadowes, the janitor, would quit his cubicle at the side entrance the moment cheering heralded the vanguard of the procession.

This part of the premises, the western end, was deserted. The entire staff of the emporium, some fifty of them, were now lining the row of windows nearer the Law Courts, and it seemed very improbable that anyone would leave them at the climactic moment, so that the stairs leading to the upper stockroom, where the ambush was centred, were likely to remain free. Soper and his fiancée, a fragile girl with huge, trusting eyes, who served at Beckwith’s glove counter, were positioned there, with five hundred leaflets apiece, laboriously blocked out on a child’s printing set, for printers could be traced. The wording was direct and, in Giles’s view, necessarily inflammable. It ran:

AFTER THE SPECTACLE THE RECKONING! MILLIONS OF HOURS OF UNPAID OVERTIME WERE WORKED BY COUNTER-JUMPERS TO MOUNT THE SPECTACLE YOU ARE WATCHING! THE AVERAGE SHOP ASSISTANT WORKS AN ELEVEN-HOUR DAY ON A SMALLER WAGE THAN AN AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. TAKE ACTION NOW TO ORGANISE THE TRADE AND OPPOSE:

Low Wages Fines for “refusing”

Unjust dismissals without a character or right of appeal
Prison diet, fed to living-in staff
Abbreviated half-days.

THESE ARE BUT FIVE CURRENT GRIEVANCES OF THE MOST EXPLOITED WORK-FORCE IN BRITAIN

Soper and his committee had been ecstatic about this broadside, embracing, as far as it could on a leaflet measuring about six inches by eight, most of the major ailments of this industrial lame duck. Privately Giles thought it could have been condensed to a point where it could be read at a glance, but there was no time to redraft so he let it pass, concentrating on the strategy of the ambush with particular emphasis on the escape route. And now, in the stifling heat of a room piled with the paraphernalia of a haberdasher’s window-dressing team, he watched the eddying crowds below, ten deep he would say both sides of the Strand, with a dribble of latecomers drifting down sidestreets in the vain hope of finding a chink in a kerbside phalanx.

Time passed slowly. About nine, as Soper had predicted, the distant throb of drums and the cheers of spectators lured Meadowes, the janitor, from his cubicle and he went out, leaving the staff door open. Soper’s key had ensured their entry before he was on duty, and Soper and his fiancée, Miriam, had climbed to the second storey with their bundles of leaflets. Romayne had been stationed as signaller on the third landing. His own job was to watch for the head of the procession, give the signal, and keep a close watch on the escape route and the movements of the janitor.

Timing, he had insisted, was vitally important. It would do far more harm than good to throw the leaflets over the sills before the royal entourage was safely past and on its way down Fleet Street. He hoped to select a section of the cavalcade that was marching rather than riding, for it was always possible that a shower of leaflets would frighten a horse and cause casualties. If there had been the faintest hint of a breeze most of the sheets would have drifted the width of the Strand, but the bunting and flags on the lamp-standards hung motionless and it seemed likely that nearly all would find pavement level on the northside. It didn’t matter, so long as Soper and the girl followed his orders and waited for the signal passed on by Romayne. Soper was an impatient chap and waiting there, with the sounds of the drums and brass drawing nearer as they battled with the almost continuous roar of the crowd, Giles wished he had had someone steadier to take his own place as scout in order that he could oversee the leaflet bombers in person. He stepped out and tiptoed halfway down the last flight of stone steps to a point where he could see the empty cubicle, then back again, calling softly to Romayne to tell Soper and Miriam that the janitor was safely out of the way. Then he resumed his place at the window and concentrated on the area immediately below. And it was at that moment, his eye ranging the north pavements, that he noted the movement of the thickset man wearing unseasonably heavy brown tweeds and a brown derby hat.

He was clearly more than a spectator and seemed to have some official purpose down there, for he walked purposefully along the carriageway, head tilted, eyes scanning the facades instead of the carriageway, as though he was some kind of policeman or marshal, assuring himself that all was well among the tiers of patriots massed at the windows of the northside premises. There was no menace about him, only an unwavering watchfulness, and when the blaring bands and the cheering engulfed them all like a tumbling wall of masonry he still sauntered there, turned away from the oncoming procession. By then, however, Giles had all but forgotten him, his attention caught and held by the spectacle in spite of himself, as the royal entourage rolled by. It began with eight rosetted greys pulling the open carriage containing a little old woman under her white parasol, the splendidly mounted and richly caparisoned bevy of royalty in its immediate wake; then the glittering, jingling squadron of Horse Guards; and behind it rank upon rank of blue, scarlet, and gold, a thousand or more men with brown faces and martial step, their presence representing the flag at the ends of the earth.

The moment was at hand and he was on the point of turning to call up to Romayne when, once again, the man in the brown derby caught his eye, insistently now for he had stopped sauntering and was standing squarely on the kerb, staring up at a window immediately above. It was the window where Soper and his girl were stationed. With a grunt of alarm, Giles saw the first of the leaflets flutter down, drifting idly and aimlessly, like birds dropping out of the sky, and in the same moment he saw the man below stiffen, gesticulate, and run swiftly round the angle of the building and out of Giles’s line of vision.

There was really little but instinct to tell him the watcher had spotted something amiss up there and for a second or so he dithered, his eye roving the fringe of latecomers in search of Meadowes, the janitor, but as he hesitated more and more leaflets floated down, separating in flight so that they seemed to multiply out of all proportion to the number printed. Then, whipping round, he heard the scrape of a boot on the stairs and leaped for the landing, almost colliding with a thickset figure in the act of tackling the third flight.

The man must have moved with extraordinary speed. Ten seconds or less had brought him this far but his step, notwithstanding his bulk, was as light as a boy’s. In a few strides he would be level with Romayne, staring over the stairwell. A moment later he would have Soper and his girl trapped with his back to the door.

Giles shouted, “Run, Romayne,
run
!” and flung himself at the steps, grabbing the heavy material of the man’s trousers, then enlarging his hold on one brown boot, so that the man lurched and stumbled, falling heavily against the iron stairrail and half-turning, so that Giles caught a glimpse of a red face with heavy jowls, a large moustache of the kind made fashionable by Lord Kitchener, and eyes that glared at him with a baffled expression. He was so occupied with holding the man that he did not hear Romayne’s warning cry, or the rush of feet on the stairs heralding the frantic descent of Soper and Miriam, the girl still clutching a double handful of leaflets. He was aware, however, of Romayne darting past or over them and into the store room he had just left and almost at once, it seemed, her reappearance with a dust-sheet that billowed like a sail and all but enveloped him.

Then, amid a rush of movement and a confused outcry, the man he was holding let go of the stair-rail and whirled his fists, aiming a blow capable, he would have said, of felling a prize-fighter had it not been deadened by the enveloping folds of the dust-sheet; it was still powerful enough to knock him clear of the stairs to a point where he cannoned into the scampering Miriam, sending her crashing against the door of the store room. After that was the wildest confusion, the intruder heaving under the sheet and the four of them arriving in a body at the foot of the stairs and bolting headlong down the corridor to the staff entrance where Meadowes stood, mouth agape and hands upraised to ward off what must have seemed to him a concerted charge. He was swept aside, steel-rimmed spectacles flying one way, peaked cap another, and then they were clear and running through the crowd in the direction of Drury Lane.

There was no immediate pursuit, or not so far as a glance over his shoulder could tell him as they doubled two more corners before arriving at the eastern arcade of Covent Garden, deserted now but shin deep in litter and baskets and barricaded with costers’ barrows half seen under their tarpaulins. He stopped then, catching Soper by the arm and saying, breathlessly, “Into the market— a dozen places to hide!” and they both scrambled over the barrows, pulling the girls after them and found cover in the semi-darkness of the grilled caves beyond.

Nobody said anything for a moment. The girl Miriam was grimacing with pain, and holding her right hand to her shoulder where it had come into violent contact with the store room door. Soper was spent but otherwise intact. The white of Romayne’s petticoat showed through a rent in her skirt and she was already fumbling in her reticule for safety-pins. Then Soper said, soberly, “My God! That was a close shave! Who was he, Mr. Swann?”

“How would I know? A plain-clothes detective maybe, keeping a lookout for something like this. He seemed to pinpoint the place at a glance.”

Soper’s eyes widened as he said, “You mean somebody peached? Someone on the committee? He was stationed there waiting for us?”

The narrowness of their escape put an edge on Giles’s tongue. “I don’t think anything of the kind. He was checking the route and saw something unusual. You and your leaflets probably. Why the devil didn’t you wait for my signal like we arranged?”

“We had trouble getting the window open. The frame stuck at less than an inch.” This from the girl, still massaging her bruised shoulder.

“But you actually threw leaflets. I saw some go down.”

“We broke the glass,” Soper said. “We had to, there was no other way.”

Giles growled, “Well, at least we know how he spotted us. Not that it matters.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Swann. We muffed it. Most of the leaflets are still up there.”

Giles replied, sourly, “You don’t fancy going back to finish the job?”

Romayne said, sharply, “That’s not fair, Giles! What else could they do in the circumstances? At least some leaflets went out.”

The girl Miriam began to cry, quietly and half-heartedly—a child warned that she will be given something to cry about if she doesn’t watch out. Giles was suddenly aware of the overpowering might of the forces ranged against them, ranged against everybody in their situation, including the cheering crowds who would soon go home, sun-tired and satisfied with their brief vision of world domination, but expected to make it last until the next free show vouchsafed by the elite. A coronation, a royal wedding, or a Lord Mayor’s Show.

He said, more to himself than the others, “It’s no use… these demonstrations… leaflets, placards, with everyone involved risking their jobs. There must be another way, a way that doesn’t put everyone at risk.” He looked directly at Soper. “You and Miriam would have been recognised by the janitor. You daren’t go back to Beckwith and Lowenstein’s now.”

“I don’t have to. I’ve given notice. I told the floor manager I was moving to another billet up north. I was paid up last Saturday.”

“You’ve got another billet?”

“No. That was a cover, in case something like this happened.”

“You’ve got a character?”

Soper shrugged. “I’ll use the ones I used to land that job, ones I wrote myself. I was in trouble at my last place. It soon gets around if you’re a militant.”

“And Miriam?”

“She can go back. Meadowes didn’t see her.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I’m sure,” Romayne said. “She was last out and I knocked his glasses off while she was still in the corridor.”

Pride in her took possession of him, going a short way to soothe the frustration and humiliation of the day. He said, “You all came out of it better than me. I was supposed to be lookout but I let him get that far. If Romayne hadn’t been sharp with that dust-sheet none of us would have got clear. I’m sorry I sneered, Soper. I had no right to. Your stake is a much bigger one than mine and I don’t have to remind you what can result from using forged references.”