'Oh it can not; my God it can't.'
Turner put aside one telegram and began another. He read fast and without effort, with the confidence of an academic, arranging the papers in to separate piles according to some undisclosed criterion.
'So what's going on? What have they got to lose apart from their honour?' he demanded, still reading. 'Why the hell call us in? Compensation's Western Department's baby, right? Evacuation's E and O's baby, right? If they're worried about the lease, they can go and cry at the Ministry of Works. So why the hell can't they leave us in peace?'
'Because it's Germany,' Shawn suggested weakly.
'Oh roll on.'
'Sorry if it spoilt something,' Shawn said with an unpleasant sneer, for he suspected Turner of a more colourful sex life than his own.
The first relevant telegram was from Bradfield. It was marked Flash; it had been despatched at eleven forty and submitted to the Resident Clerk at two twenty-eight. Skardon, Consul General in Hanover, had summoned all British staff and families to the Residence, and was making urgent representations to the police. The second telegram consisted of a Reuter newsflash timed at eleven fifty-three: demonstrators had broken in to the British Library; police were unequal to the situation; the fate of Fräulein Eick [sic] the librarian was unknown.
Hard upon this came a second rush telegram from Bonn: 'Norddeutscher Rundfunk reports Eick repeat Eick killed by mob.' But this was in turn immediately contradicted, for Bradfield, through the good offices of Herr Siebkron of the Ministry of the Interior ('with whom I have a close relationship'), had by then succeeded in obtaining direct contact with the Hanover police. According to their latest assessment, the British Library had been sacked and its books burned before a large crowd. Printed posters had appeared with anti- British slogans such as 'TheFarmers won't Pay for your Empire!' and 'Work for your own bread, don't steal ours!'
Fräulein Gerda Eich [sic] aged fifty-one of 4 Hohenzollernweg, Hanover, had been dragged down two flights of stone steps, kicked and punched in the face and made to throw her own books in to the fire. Police with horses and anti-riot equipment were being brought in from neighbouring towns.
A marginal annotation by Shawn stated that Tracing Section had turned up a record of the unfortunate Fräulein Eich. She was a retired school teacher, some time in British Occupational employment, some time secretary of the Hanover Branch of the Anglo- German Society, who in 1962 had been awarded a British decoration for services to international understanding.
'Another anglophile bites the dust,' Turner muttered.
There followed a long if hastily compiled summary of broadcasts and bulletins. This, too, Turner studied with close application. No one, it seemed, and least of all those who had been present, was able to say precisely what had triggered off the riot, nor what had attracted the crowd towards the library in the first place. Though demonstrations were now a commonplace of the German scene, a riot on this scale was not; Federal authorities had confessed themselves 'deeply concerned'. Herr Ludwig Siebkron of the Ministry of the Interior had broken his habitual silence to remark to a Press Conference that there was 'cause for very real anxiety'. An immediate decision had been taken to provide additional protection for all official and quasi-official British buildings and residences throughout the Federal Republic. The British Ambassador, after some initial hesitation, had agreed to impose a voluntary curfew on his staff.
Accounts of the incident by police, press and even delegates themselves were hopelessly confused. Some declared it was spontaneous; a collective gesture aggravated by the word 'British'which happened to be exhibited on the side of the library building. It was natural, they said, that as the day of decision in Brussels drew rapidly closer, the Movement's policy of opposition to the Common Market should assume a specifically anti- British form. Others swore they had seen a sign, a white handkerchief that fluttered from a window; one witness even claimed that a rocket had risen behind the town hall and emitted stars of red and gold. For some the crowd had surged with a positive impulse, for others it had 'flowed'; for others again it had trembled. 'It was led from the centre,' one senior police officer reported. 'The periphery was motionless until the centre moved.' 'Those at the centre,' Western Radio maintained, 'kepttheir composure. The outrage was perpetrated by a few hooligans at the front. The others were then obliged to follow.' On one point only they seemed to agree: the incident had taken place when the music was loudest. It was even suggested by a woman witness that the music itself had been the sign which started the crowd running.
The Spiegel correspondent, on the other hand, speaking on Northern Radio, had a circumstantial account of how a grey omnibus chartered by a mysterious Herr Meyer of Luneburg conveyed 'a bodyguard of thirty picked men' to the town centre of Hanover one hour before the demonstration began and that this bodyguard, drawn partly from students and partly from young farmers, had formed a 'protective ring' round the Speaker's podium. It was these 'picked men' who had started the rush. The entire action had therefore been inspired by Karfeld himself. 'It is an open declaration,' he insisted, 'that from now on, the Movement proposes to march to its own music.'
'This Eich,' Turner said at last. 'What's the latest?'
' She's as well as can be expected.'
'How well's that?'
'That's all they said.'
'Oh fine.'
'Fortunately neither Eich nor the Library are a British responsibility. The Library was founded during the Occupation but handed over to the Germans quite soon afterwards. It's not controlled and owned exclusively by the Land authority. There's nothing British about it.'
'So they've burned their own books.' Shawn gave a startled smile.
'Well yes, actually,' he said. 'Come to think of it, they have. That's rather a useful point; we might even suggest it to Press Section.'
The telephone was ringing. Shawn lifted the receiver and listened.
'It's Lumley,' he said, putting his hand over the mouthpiece. 'The porter told him you're in.'
Turner appeared not to hear. He was studying another telegram; it was quite a short telegram, two paragraphs, not more; it was headed 'personal for Lumley' and marked 'immediate' and this was the second copy passed to Turner.
'He wants you, Alan.' Shawn held out the receiver.
Turner read the text once and then read it again. Rising, he went to the steel cupboard and drew out a small black notebook, unused, which he thrust in to the recesses of his tropical suit.
'You stupid bugger,' he said very quietly, from the door. 'Whydon't you learn to read your telegrams? All the time you've been bleating about fire extinguishers we've had a bloody defector on our hands.'
He held up the sheet of pink paper for Shawn to read.
'A planned departure, that's what they call it. Forty-three files missing, not one of them below Confidential. One green classified Maximum and Limit, gone since Friday. I'll say it was planned.'
Leaving Shawn with the telephone still in his hand, Turner thudded down the corridor in the direction of his master's room. His eyes were a swimmer's eyes, very pale, washed colourless by the sea.
Shawn stared after him. That's what happens, he decided, when you open your doors to the other ranks. They leave their wives and children, use filthy language in the corridors and play ducks and drakes with all the common courtesies. With a sigh, he replaced the receiver, raised it again and dialled News Department. This was Shawn, he said, S-H-A-W-N. He had had rather a good idea about the riots in Hanover, the way one might play it at Press Conference: it was nothing to do with us after all, if the Germans decided to burn their own books... He thought that might go down pretty well as an example of cool English wit. Yes, Shawn, S-HA- W-N. Not at all; they might even have lunch together some time.