The Fifth Columnists were being strongly supported by German parachutists dressed in civilian clothes and even as clergymen or women. These enemies within had cut communications, seized bridges to prevent their being blown up and held off the local police while German troop-carriers had landed regular troops on golf courses, arterial roads, long stretches of sandy beach and other makeshift air-grounds.
In consequence an incredible state of confusion had resulted throughout the length and breadth of the country. Nobody now knew if a policeman or an officer was a genuine executive of the State or if he was a German sympathiser employed in diverting traffic or turning back troops in order to facilitate the advance of the enemy. There were several hundred small wars going on all over the place and large bodies of troops which should have been holding the main defence system had had to be recalled into the interior of the country to try to mop up these innumerable groups of Fifth Columnists and German airborne troops.
In the evening the new British Inner Cabinet was announced. Churchill—Premier; Chamberlain—Lord President of the Council; Attlee—Lord Privy Seal; Halifax—Foreign Affairs; Alexander—Admiralty; Eden—War Office; Sinclair—Air Minister; and Greenwood—Minister without Portfolio. Later another batch of appointments came through. Simon—Lord Chancellor; Kingsley Wood—Exchequer; Lord Lloyd—Colonies; Herbert Morrison—Supply; Anderson—Home Office; and Duff Cooper—Information.
Many of the newcomers were excellent men, but it was clear that even Churchill had been unable to break down the old business of Party claims which has to be considered in any Coalition Government; whereby professional politicians who have achieved leadership by years of uninspired hack work must be given key positions, however much they may lack the necessary qualifications to fill them, instead of the Premier having a free hand to choose younger men of outstanding ability. By and large the new Government was a great improvement on the old one, but the thing which utterly dumbfounded Gregory was that Sir John Anderson had been allowed to remain at the Home Office, when for eight solid months he had flatly refused to curb the activities of the Fascists or to take even the most rudimentary precautions to prevent the same sort of thing happening in Britain as was going on at that moment in Holland.
Whit Monday, the fourth day of the battle for the Low Countries, showed no sign of a break in the weather. Ever since May the 5th the skies had been almost cloudless and it was nearly as hot as midsummer. The German thrust into mid-Holland had deepened while further south the enemy had broken right through the eastern end of the Albert Line, hurled 2,000 tanks at Tongres and now threatened the main Belgian bastion of Liege on three sides.
Over the week-end Gregory's fears for the outcome of his killing had considerably lessened, as with every hour that passed there was less likelihood of his being taken before a military court and summarily condemned to death. The Dutch authorities were learning to their cost of the incredible havoc which was being wrought upon their war effort by Nazi sympathisers among their own countrymen and there was abundant evidence from the police who had been present as to why Gregory had struck down Chief Inspector Van der Woerden. He therefore no longer thought that there was any danger of his being charged with murder. It was even possible that the British authorities might be able to secure his release on a Royal pardon from the Queen of Holland; but other anxieties were now beginning to agitate him.
Three full days had elapsed since his telegrams had been sent off but he had had no reply to either, and no one had come to interview him from the British Legation at The Hague, so he thought it very doubtful if the telegrams had ever reached their destination. In consequence it looked as though he would be unable to obtain any assistance from his own people until the Dutch had succeeded in restoring some sort of order in the territory behind their actual line of battle; but the devil of it was that they might fail to do so before the advancing German armies had smashed their way forward and completely overrun the whole country. If he were detained in his cell until the Germans reached Rotterdam, Grauber might appear with a squad of Black Guards to collect him; and that was a very worrying thought indeed.
On the Monday morning he had been consoling himself with the belief that he probably had at least three or four more days to go before such a calamity was liable to overtake him, but in the evening he received an extremely rude shock. With a glum face the warder told him that a German armoured column had penetrated to within five miles of the city. True, a company of tanks might be far ahead of their supporting troops but Gregory had good reason to know that wherever a German spear-head appeared its main forces very soon succeeded in following it.
He sent an urgent request for Inspector Fockink to come and see him, then turned to the map on the wall of his cell; but he did not even need to glance at it to realise that the Dutch northern armies were now in the gravest peril. For the past three days they had been putting up a stout defence along their water-line, in spite of the fact that after the first day the Germans had achieved complete air superiority and of the sabotage which was occurring right, left and centre in their rear. But now that the point of the German wedge had practically reached the coast they were cut off from their Allies, and Gregory knew sufficient of German strategy to forecast with conviction that the enemy's spear-head would now curve north towards Utrecht, thereby encircling the Dutch and rendering their position absolutely untenable.
The warder returned to say that Inspector Fockink was out superintending the defence of one of the street barricades and that no one had any idea if or when he would return. The bombing had temporarily stopped but the banging of hand-grenades and crackle of rifle-fire sounded considerably nearer, so in a decidedly cheerless frame of mind Gregory sat down to his supper.
For the last forty-eight hours he had had to make do on cold tinned-foods, as most of the restaurants near by had closed down either on account of war damage to their properties or owing to scarcity of food, which was already becoming very short in Rotterdam, all supply services having been interrupted.
While he ate his Dutch ham and sausage the warder gave him the gist of a British news bulletin which had just come in.
The Queen of Holland had arrived safely in London; Churchill had put a motion to the House of Commons that Britain should fight on to a victorious finish, which had been carried by 381 votes to 0; and several new appointments had been announced. Amery—Secretary for India; Macdonald— Health; Lord Woolton—Food; and Bevan—Labour; while from Italy anti-British demonstrations by crowds of war-mongering young Fascists were reported in Rome.
The news about the Queen of Holland was extremely perturbing, as it indicated pretty clearly that the Dutch goose was as good as cooked. Gregory knew that Queen Wilhelmina was a woman of great character and absolutely devoted to her people. He felt that she would never have abandoned them at such a time unless the situation was quite hopeless and she considered that she could serve them better by escaping to England and retaining her freedom than by remaining to be taken prisoner by the Germans.
He waited up till past one in the morning hoping that Fockink would return; but the Inspector failed to do so and Gregory paced the narrow limits of his cell unable to settle to anything from the grim forebodings that now crowded in upon him.
When he went to bed the cannonade which had been raging for four days and four nights without cessation was more furious than ever. It seemed as though Hell had been let loose in a dozen quarters of the city, and when he put out his light the room remained almost as bright as day, with a red glow from the many fires that were raging. During the previous nights it had been by no means easy to get any sleep, and now it was almost impossible, as he was haunted by the persistent thought that within another twenty-four hours he might be delivered, bound hand and foot, into the clutches of the Nazis.