Great minds think alike. I’ve been trying to do that ever since Nell and her friends spirited Winston out of the country. I just don’t know how to start. Nobody seems to write instruction books on how to do it. “What is that to do with an old man like me? Hiding in the woods and shooting up patrols is a young man’s game.” And a sober man’s game. The Duke cast an anguished glance at Calvert who had killed a bottle of pinch-bottle Haig in five straight pulls.
“One might think of a fake auxiliary police unit smuggling a certain figure out of the country and a Flying Fortress that arrived at Prestwick, took off and was never seen again. Little Brother was enormously impressed by that, Your Grace; he swears he will write it up as a novel one day. He believes there is a market for novels about spies. You’ve got a rare talent for this game; and, with respect, your age makes you all the less likely as a leader.”
“But what do you want me to do?” The Duke put an air of despairing confusion into his voice.
“We’re going to set up the resistance forces.” It was Calvert speaking, his voice steady and level. Dear God; he’s sober. How? Listening to him, the Duke had sudden doubts about the authenticity and strength of his whisky supply. Calvert carried on in the same, steady voice. “Colonel Colin Gubbins has been appointed by Winston to organize the force. It will consist of two components. The first being a military arm that will be raised out of, and technically be part of, the Home Guard. We’re calling it the Auxiliary Units, in the hope that anybody coming across the name will confuse it with Butler’s Auxiliary Police. They’ll be supported by a civilian arm, the Special Duty Sections, recruited from the local civilian population. This group will act as the spotters for the Auxiliary Units. In addition, a signals structure will link the isolated bands into a national network that can act in concert. That network will work on behalf of a British government-in-exile and its representatives still in the United Kingdom. We want you to keep an eye open for likely civilian candidates and we want to place the root of the communications system here.”
“So my job will be to recruit members of the civilian resistance?”
“No.” Fleming was sharp and very emphatic. “You will coordinate recruiting but, Your Grace, you must never be directly involved in any operations again. Mike and I will be your aides and do the leg work. We are the cut-out between the German occupiers and the head of the resistance movement. That’s you. Your job will be to coordinate recruitment and oversee the organization. At most, to spot likely candidates. We will do the rest.”
“Halifax OUT! Halifax OUT! Halifax OUT OUT OUT!”
It is the eternal prerogative of university students to demonstrate. It worked off excess energy. University College Nottingham might not have been a fully-fledged university yet, and it might have to rely on the University of London to award its degrees, but that merely added to the fervor of its students. If they weren’t quite university students, they’d show everybody that they had the spirit and energy to become ones. And so it was that the demonstration poured down Abbey Street; their banners held high and their chant echoing off the buildings. For all its energy, it was a good-mannered demonstration. No windows were broken and the students made sure that passers-by had the room they needed to go about their business. The police recognized that. The handful of constables on duty watched with tolerant smiles. More than a few of them agreed with the students.
It was the crossroads by the White Hart public house that did it. The threat of a major demonstration had caused the National Security Service to bring in large numbers of Auxiliary Police. Their lorries blocked the way down Abbey Street. That forced the demonstrators to turn down Lenton Lane. Unfortunately, the road narrowed sharply as it approached a bridge over a canal. That compressed the crowd and made it more difficult to control. There were factories the other side of the bridge. The Auxiliary Police had been ordered to protect them. They’d blocked the bridge. The demonstrators had nowhere to go. Those at the front tried to stop. Those behind them couldn’t see what the problem was. Their pressure pushed the front ranks forward. Even then, the situation might have been controlled, given skilled handling. The Auxiliary Police had little training in crowd control and too many of them had been sampling the beer served at the White Hart.
In the front ranks of the demonstration, David Newton saw the cordon of Blackshirts. He felt the crowd eddying around him. The pressure from behind was carrying him forward, leaving him helpless to do anything other than watch the disaster unfold. As the crowd surged towards them, the Blackshirts panicked. They started lashing out with their batons in order to stave off the pressure. Newton heard the thud as the batons, longer and heavier than the traditional policeman’s truncheons, struck home. The victims fell. Others tripped over them; some falling into the Blackshirts in the cordon. What had been a neat division between demonstration and Blackshirt ranks collapsed into a swirling mass. That was when he heard the sharp crack of a pistol shot. There was a stunned pause; a moment of silence. Then two or three more shots. The students forming the demonstration broke and ran. Unable to go backwards or forwards, they went sideways, into the maze of old houses that lined the canal.
Newton ran, heading away from the Blackshirts. They were following the crowd, lashing out at anybody who was within their reach. He knew they were out of control; any semblance of discipline they might have had was collapsing under the pressure of events. Instinctively, he knew how dangerous they were. The screams and scattered shots from behind him merely reinforced that knowledge. Heaving for breath, he turned into a sidestreet to try and get clear. That was when fear really gripped him. He had turned into a dead end. A group of Blackshirts were already approaching. There was a small group of students between him and the Auxiliaries. That gave him a chance to hide. He grabbed a doorhandle. To his blessed relief, the door was unlocked. He dived in, slammed it shut and turned the lock. Then he put his full weight against it.
He was shaking as he heard the screams get closer. Then he heard a figure pounding on the door and a frantic plea. “For God’s sake, let me in. Help me, for mercy’s sake, let me in.”
He recognized the voice. It was Rachael. He tried to move, tried to open the door for her, but his body wouldn’t obey the orders from his mind. He kept trying to move, trying to get his arms to slip the catch and his legs to move him away so the door could open. It was as if his limbs were encased in mud. While he fought himself, he heard her pleading change to wails of fear and then screams. Behind him, the door lurched and banged. Its lock, reinforced by his back, held firm. It seemed like an eternity, but it was only a few seconds. He heard more screams and pleas from outside. Then silence. The sounds receded.
Only then did he realize he was weeping with shame and humiliation.
Hours later, he was cold and stiff from being braced against the door. The sounds of the riot had long since faded away, leaving him alone and sickened. It was safe to leave; safe to pick his way back through the streets towards the College and its halls of residence. It was strange; for all the fear, terror and violence there was little actual evidence of what had happened. The buildings seemed undamaged in the twilight. There were no shattered windows or broken doors. A broken streetlight was unusual enough to draw his attention. There were small dark puddles that he kept well away from. That was all he saw of the aftermath from the afternoon that had changed his life.