The Leader

by Guy Walters

  Armstrong put the jacket on, over a scruffy shirt he had been given when he had volunteered for some gardening duties. A flat cap and a pair of workman’s boots completed the picture of a labourer trying to look his best on a Sunday morning. A full beard was another part of the disguise, albeit a reluctant one. It was ironic, Armstrong had told Paddy, that he had never gone for longer than twenty-four hours without a shave in the trenches, and yet here he was, two decades later, having to grow a beard just to get around his own bloody country, the country he had fought for.

  As quietly as the boots would allow, Armstrong tiptoed out the room. He took one last look at Winston, smiled at a particularly loud snore, and then slipped into the corridor. He crept down the stairs, and made his way into the small common room at the back of the house. A sash window, the bolt of which had been broken a week before and then made to look intact, slid open easily. Armstrong swung his legs out into the night air and then jumped the few feet into the back yard.

  He remained still after he had landed. Once more he could hear the music wafting over from the Albert Hall. He could hear female laughter too, presumably coming from those who had been lured outside by lustful guards. Although the guards rarely patrolled inside the camp – just around it – and even though it was Saturday night, Armstrong was ready for the unexpected. Both politics and the army had taught him that lesson.

  In front of him was a grass bank that rose a hundred feet within the same number of yards. At the top was a row of houses, which were also part of the camp. Armstrong’s objective was a row of smaller houses beyond them, a row that bordered the top perimeter of the camp.

  Just as he was about to start walking, something stopped him. It wasn’t a sound or a figure – it was his legs. They were shaking violently, preventing him from moving. He knew what would happen if he didn’t control himself – he would have an attack, a seizure. They had started in northern France, and had only stopped when the war was finally over. But they had returned in ’23 with a vengeance, and had nearly been the end of him. It happened to a lot of them, but you didn’t ever talk about it, you kept it quiet. Never mind that it nearly killed you, because you were a hero, and heroes weren’t supposed to crack.

  Armstrong took several deep breaths. God only knew why this hadn’t happened before, and yet here it was, a repeat of something from within that he feared the most. Perhaps it had accumulated, built up as it had done throughout the war, and had now picked its moment to release itself. He felt like lying down and weeping. He felt tired, sick and faint. He could see, as if it was happening in front of him, the explosion at La Quinque Rue, the explosion that had torn six of his men to pieces, caking him in their entrails and sending a mass of mud and limbs into the air.

  Don’t give in to it, they had told him, don’t surrender to it, whatever it was. Not that the doctors had believed him at first, but then there were so many of them, so many of them who had suddenly lost it, ended up in asylums or been shut away in a kindly relative’s country house. You could be walking down the street years later and it would hit you, a massively delayed reaction from the years of shelling and death. It was like a shell in itself, shellshock, because it came out of nowhere and it was indiscriminate.

  He was taking control of it now, concentrating on his legs, making himself stop them shaking. If he didn’t, then his whole body would tremble and he would collapse in a gibbering heap right there in the yard, and would only be noticed when his screams woke someone up. But he was taking control, steadying himself, sorting it out. He used to need whisky to do this, a lot of whisky, but he was managing without, had no need of such medication. Good, he thought, it was going, just another minute and he’d be able to move. He just had to hope it didn’t happen in the tunnel.

  Perhaps he shouldn’t go; perhaps it would endanger the others. But they had insisted, telling him that he was needed on the outside, that it was essential he get out. He started walking slowly, telling himself that this was nothing, that there would be worse to come.

  The tunnel started in the small house – number 13 Peveril Road – inhabited by Paddy and two others, one a hard left Labour MP by the name of Jimmy Craven, the other a Liberal called Neil Wigan. It led out from the porch and across the road, running underneath the barbed-wire perimeter fence. After thirty feet, the tunnel surfaced in the middle of a small path that ran between a building that had been requisitioned as a guardhouse, and a small bungalow. It was hardly ideal, but they couldn’t go any further.

  It had taken nearly three months to dig it, three gruelling months of toiling, of lying in the filthy darkness hacking away with scavenged pieces of iron. To make matters worse, the tunnel passed over a sewer, making conditions inside nearly unbearable, as well as causing the house to stink of drains, something Paddy had jokingly explained away in public as being inevitable if you had a socialist like Craven living with you.

  The tunnel had needed to be shored up, and so timbers had been appropriated from some bunk beds left in a store cupboard. The earth – and there was more than they had bargained for – had been deposited in the small garden behind the house. By the time the tunnel had been completed, the level of the garden had risen by about two feet. So far that had gone unnoticed, but it would only be a matter of time before some sharp-eyed little guard noticed how the garden at number 13 was significantly higher than those at numbers 11 and 15.

  After a couple of minutes, Armstrong found himself tapping five times on the house’s rear window. A pair of hands emerged from the gloom and opened it.

  ‘Come on in, dear fellow.’

  Armstrong did so with ease, the extra height of the garden enabling him to almost step into the small kitchen.

  ‘Good evening, Chief Whip.’

  Armstrong could make out Paddy’s smile above a shielded candle.

  ‘Evening, Paddy,’ Armstrong replied. ‘All ready?’

  ‘Everything seems tip-top – good trip up here?’

  ‘Fine,’ said Armstrong. ‘Seemed fine.’

  ‘Excellent – guards on the sauce then?’

  ‘It would seem so.’

  It was impossible, thought Armstrong, for Paddy Evans to act seriously. In the House, this had made many regard him as a lightweight, but Armstrong knew better, insisting that Stanley Baldwin make him one of his junior whips. What he lacked in gravitas, Paddy made up for in loyalty and doggedness, and he made an excellent whip, using his charm to cajole those who were tempted to vote the wrong way.

  ‘Craven and Wigan?’ asked Armstrong.

  ‘Wigan’s on lookout upstairs. Hasn’t seen a soul. Craven’s all ready for you.’

  ‘The guardhouse?’

  ‘Empty. Seems nobody’s been a bad boy recently.’

  ‘Good.’

  That was unusual. Along with the MPs, Peveril Internment Camp held another few hundred ‘enemies of the state’: trade unionists, journalists, artists, academics and peers, all out to give the guards as hard a time as possible. Many had found themselves locked up in one of the guardhouses for committing some unpatriotic misdemeanour. It was a blessing, then, that the guardhouse opposite lay temporarily vacant.

  A form approached out of the darkness. It was Craven, who was to be Armstrong’s escape partner that night. Powerfully built, and with seamlessly conjoined dark eyebrows, Craven was a real rabble-rouser, a militant, and certainly not someone for whom Armstrong had a great deal of political fondness. But he had a good war record, and hated the fascists – two attributes that Armstrong found admirable. However, it was Craven’s links with the Freedom Council, an underground movement set up by Communists and Jews, that now made him a uniquely useful ally. Their plan was to get down to London, where they would make contact with the Council and persuade them to take part in Armstrong’s coup. The Council was well placed to set up a network of opposition cells that could whip up public support for Galwey’s temporary administration in the event of Mosley’s removal.

  ‘Have you got everything?’ Armst
rong asked.

  Craven nodded, but Armstrong insisted they check they had what they needed: bread, some unattractively desiccated ham, cheese, water, a compass, money. They stepped into the front room of the house, Paddy shakily carrying the candle with him. Armstrong noticed the stench of drains was stronger than usual.

  ‘The smell’s got worse, hasn’t it?’ he asked.

  ‘I know. There’s even been a little more, er, seepage in the tunnel.’

  ‘How bad?’

  ‘Bad enough to use these,’ said Paddy, producing a pair of canvas mail sacks from underneath a table. ‘You can crawl along on them. I don’t expect you fancy reeking of crap for your little sea voyage.’

  ‘I’m sorry you’ve got to stay here,’ said Armstrong.

  Paddy shrugged.

  ‘Hah! I’m getting used to it!’

  As he and Wigan would make their attempt next Saturday, they only had to endure another week of the vile smell that had impregnated the very fabric of the house.

  Paddy tapped five times on the ceiling. After a few seconds, five taps came back, giving them the all-clear.

  ‘All right, let’s get moving,’ said Armstrong, taking a mail sack.

  In truth, he had no wish to hang about, fearing another attack. If he kept going, he would be fine, he knew he would. Together, the three men went to the porch, and lifted up a piece of lino to reveal a rough handleless trapdoor, under which Paddy inserted a small piece of metal. Slowly he lifted the door, causing Armstrong and Craven to put their hands over their noses and mouths as the full stench of the sewer made itself known.

  ‘Christ almighty!’ Armstrong swore quietly to himself. It was worse than the trenches.

  Paddy suppressed a cough and then extinguished the candle. Armstrong and Craven had no need of it, because they knew every inch of the tunnel.

  ‘Best of luck, you two,’ said Paddy. ‘See you at White’s for a whisky mac on Sunday week.’

  ‘Not me you won’t,’ said Craven.

  ‘All right then,’ said Paddy. ‘See you at the Stepney Working Men’s Club for a London Pride.’

  ‘That’s more like it,’ Craven replied, chuckling quietly.

  Armstrong stepped down, finding the first rung of their makeshift ladder with his right foot. He descended swiftly and confidently, and then turned to face down the tunnel. The smell was so bad he thought he might pass out, but he told himself to stop being a fool. He would crawl through miles of crap to get out of this place, he thought, let alone a mere thirty feet.

  He bent down, and holding the top corners of the mail sack laid it down on the damp soil before kneeling on it. He would doubtless get somewhat dirty, but the sack would help. He started crawling, listening to the sound of his own breathing, as well as that of Craven behind him. After half a minute he felt for the large stone they had stuck in the left-hand side of the wall to indicate the halfway point, the point at which they crossed underneath the fence. As soon as he touched it, Armstrong started to feel a sense of freedom. It was exhilarating, despite his having toiled past this point on countless grimy occasions.

  The sewage got bad here, and his hands were soon made damp by a festering mixture of reeking effluence. He could feel his knees getting wet, but he ignored it, knowing that in another few seconds he and Craven would be making their way up out of here and into the fresh air and freedom. It really did stink of the trenches though, especially like those at Le Plantin. There, the water was so deep that some of his Gurkhas, shorter than the average British soldier, had drowned as they had tried to seek cover from a bombardment.

  They were approaching one of the riskiest moments of their attempt – the lifting of the sod of earth that lay in the middle of the path between the guardhouse and the bungalow. Paddy had made a small wooden frame to support the sod, and he claimed his creation could take the weight of a person. Armstrong knew that all he could do now was trust him.

  Armstrong got to his feet, crouching just below the exit. He listened carefully, although his ears had never recovered from the shelling. Damn, he should have made Craven go first – he would have much better hearing. But it was too late for that, for there was no room for them to swap positions. He waited for another minute, sensing Craven’s restlessness behind him. There was nothing, he was sure of it. Cautiously he lifted Paddy’s frame.

  The night air smelt sweet, and beckoned him upwards. He pushed the frame with its sod carefully to one side, and heaved himself up with the slightest of grunts. Craven helped him with a leg-up, and, heart pounding, he crawled out on to the path. For a moment he lay still, taking in his surroundings. He had spent three months looking at this patch of turf, and now he was actually on it.

  Then he stood up, and reached down to take Craven’s outstretched hands, the only part of him that was above ground. The image reminded Armstrong of the Lady in the Lake. He pulled silently, dragging Craven on to the turf. Together they replaced the sod and brushed away any telltale clods of earth from where it joined the rest of the path. Craven smiled at Armstrong but he didn’t reciprocate. He didn’t want Craven to feel relaxed, not even slightly. He knew that it was best to stay calm, firm and expressionless. Armstrong looked back at the house, detecting a slight twitch in the curtain of an upstairs window. He could only imagine how delighted Paddy and Wigan would be.

  Walking briskly rather than running, Armstrong and Craven made their way down the Peveril Road, down into the town proper. They had gleaned much of the layout of Peel from the same guards who had sold them their money. They were tempted to turn right, to go down Jib Lane, but that would take them too near the Albert Hall, which overlooked the bay. Instead they would have to navigate as best they could through the warren of streets, and find their way to the long, narrow harbour that lay on the other side of town. It was there that they would steal a boat, some suitable craft that would take them off the island.

  The streets were quiet, and Armstrong was grateful for the absence of street lighting. Occasionally the two men found themselves lit up by dim yellow lamps above front doors, but for the most part they moved in darkness. The noise from the Albert Hall retreated, but Armstrong was constantly on his guard for the sight of a uniform around a corner.

  It came sooner than he had feared. They were walking down a narrow lane of stone two-up-two-downs that curved to the left. Armstrong was slightly ahead of Craven when he spotted the unmistakable domed silhouette of a policeman’s helmet. Normally it was a sight that he would have found reassuring, but now it made him come to an abrupt halt, his senses dramatically alert, his left arm stretched behind him, signalling Craven to stop.

  The policeman was walking up the street towards them. As the two escapers crouched in the shallow doorway of one of the cottages, they could see that the policeman’s gait was relaxed, his arms behind his back, his pace slow and measured. Armstrong presumed that the man was looking forward to his bed, that this was his home stretch before he curled up with the missus. It suddenly occurred to him that perhaps they were even crouching in the doorway of the policeman’s own cottage. That would be just their luck.

  By now, the constable was twenty feet away. It was time for a decision. Should they rush him, knock him out? The thought didn’t appeal to Armstrong, not just because he found the notion of assaulting a policeman anathema, but because when the man came to, the alarm would be raised. Neither could they talk their way out of it – after all, how could they explain what they were doing skulking like this? Where do you live, sir? Out and about this time of night, sir? It was hopeless. Armstrong decided all they could do was wait, motionless. The street might just be dark enough.

  It looked as though their luck was in. As the policeman approached, he showed no sign that he had noticed the two men. Then he stopped.

  ‘Hello, there.’

  Armstrong could feel Craven tense behind him; he himself stayed rigidly still.

  ‘Who have we got here?’

  Craven made to move, but Armstrong didn’t budge.<
br />
  ‘You’re out late tonight. Shouldn’t someone have shut you up?’

  Armstrong momentarily closed his eyes. All that tunnelling, only to end up being caught by a policeman on his way back home.

  ‘I know what you’d like. A saucer of milk, wouldn’t you? Yes.’

  Armstrong felt a wave of relief that almost knocked him over. It was a cat! He was talking to a bloody cat. The policeman walked right past them, holding his hand out towards the ground.

  ‘Come on, you, let’s get you home.’

  The constable was past them now, as was the sound of a slight and appreciative mewing. Armstrong didn’t dare to breathe, waiting instead for the policeman to disappear up the lane with his no doubt tailless friend. The footsteps got fainter, and then he heard them stop, followed by the sound of a key in a lock and a door being quietly shut. Armstrong exhaled.

  ‘Christ,’ Craven whispered behind him. ‘That was . . .’

  ‘Close,’ Armstrong finished for him, allowing himself a slight smile. ‘Let’s get going.’

  They carried on down the lane and soon found themselves on the road in front of the harbour, an inlet about a hundred feet wide that ran into the bay. On the other side, Peel Hill loomed solidly in the moonlight, a silvery path snaking up to its peak. To Armstrong’s right, guarding the harbour’s entrance, was Peel Castle, its medieval battlements visible against the night sky.

  The harbour was packed with every form of boat that Armstrong could imagine. Ropes occasionally slapped against masts, and there was something reassuring in the gentle creaking sound of craft rubbing against each other in the lightest of swells. The two men scuttled across the road and down some stone steps to the floating decking that ran alongside the harbour wall. As neither of them was in any way an accomplished sailor, they had agreed to steal the simplest boat possible, not wishing to complicate matters by attempting to hoist sails or fiddle with keels. A motorboat was what they were after, a vessel small enough to be rowed quietly out to sea before its engine could be started out of earshot.