The Leader

by Guy Walters

  ‘We cannot hope to restore order to this country with rogue elements like Armstrong on the loose,’ said Mosley.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Ousby. ‘I quite understand your annoyance. He will be found, my Leader.’

  A silence, and then: ‘So what do you think he’s up to?’

  ‘We’re not sure, sir.’

  ‘He’ll be busy, Ousby, busy doing something that could harm us all. Armstrong’s no fool, and he’s well connected with those who are not as . . . sympathetic to our adventure as I would wish. I cannot relax when I know the man’s on the loose.’

  ‘We will find him.’

  ‘I sincerely hope so for your sake, Ousby. And where are you looking?’

  ‘It’s my suspicion that he’s stayed in London.’

  ‘I take it you have no idea where.’

  ‘We are working our way through a list of his former colleagues, fellow officers, friends – anybody who knows him. There are hundreds of addresses to check.’

  ‘How long will this take?’

  ‘Hard to say, sir, perhaps three to four more days.’

  ‘You’ve got two. I want this cleared, up before I go to Germany.’

  Judging by the sharp click that Ousby then heard, the Leader had violently slammed down the phone. Ousby could have done with a drink, but secret or not, he was still a policeman, and policemen did not drink on duty.

  * * *

  ‘Telegram for you, sir!’

  The NCO offered Major-General Clifford a smart salute, which Clifford acknowledged with a gruff expectoration. He was not in the best of moods, especially since he had spent the past several weeks in a state of near lethal anxiety. His wife, Patricia, concerned for his health, had insisted that he have his blood pressure read. The result – 190 over 110 – confirmed her suspicions. She and the doctor had begged him to take some time off, but Clifford had insisted that he had too much to do, essential work that nobody else could do. What was it, Patricia had asked, what was it that was so important? Clifford had brushed her off with ‘essential army business’, and Patricia, knowing when she had pushed her husband too far, had reluctantly left it at that.

  Clifford took the flimsy telegram from the NCO’s outstretched hand. It disgusted him that the man’s sleeve bore an embroidered lightning flash, a device that Clifford had refused to wear on his own uniform. He knew that such petty acts of rebellion would get him into hot water, but his current state of mind was more than a little bloody-minded. Clifford rudely brushed the man out of the room with the back of his hand, not noticing the man perform another rigid salute.

  Of all things, it was a greetings telegram. With a thick tobacco-stained thumb, he ripped open the envelope and extracted a small piece of paper, the head of which was garlanded with a rather florid arrangement of roses and thistles. Nestling in them was the royal coat of arms, and yet again, another bloody lightning flash. It was almost enough to make Clifford tear up the telegram before he had even read it.

  A few seconds later, Clifford’s mood had been entirely changed by the telegram’s handful of innocuous phrases.

  AUNT MARY HAS MADE A FULL RECOVERY STOP SAYS, SHE IS LOOKING FORWARD TO HER BIRTHDAY PARTY STOP WILL SEND DETAILS OF VENUE SOONEST STOP PLEASE TELL REST OF FAMILY STOP BEST WISHES STOP COUSIN JIM ENDS

  Clifford smiled and lit a most gratifying cigarette. Armstrong was a genius, he thought, a bloody genius. He took a blank sheet of paper from his letter rack and proceeded to draft a signal, the top of which was headlined ‘Most Urgent’.

  * * *

  Armstrong resolved to keep the Blackshirt uniform. Along with his beard, it gave him a semblance of protection, and he felt more confident wearing it than in one of Ted’s suits. Ted suggested that they might be able to doctor the identity papers he had removed from the Blackshirt in Carlisle, but as Armstrong had been born in a different century to the papers’ holder, it would make alteration difficult. On balance, Armstrong decided that it was better to have no papers than clumsily doctored ones – his Blackshirt uniform would just have to do.

  The two men were driving east along the Embankment, Ted at the wheel, a cigarette gripped between his right middle and index fingers. With his face on the front of The Blackshirt and Action, Armstrong felt extremely uneasy being out, but it would be pointless for him to languish indoors. That was not why he had escaped, and that was not what Craven had died for. He had to continue taking risks, and he would carry on until his luck had expired.

  London had changed. The most obvious difference was the ubiquitous presence of fascist banners and flags. They were like acne, Armstrong thought, for they had erupted over the face of every building of note. Even the great Battersea Power Station had a massive banner suspended between its two riverside chimneys. On it were painted two lightning flashes, between which ran the predictable slogan, ‘Hail Mosley – The Power of the Land’. Along the pavements walked an endless stream of Blackshirts and people wearing the fascist armband. Armstrong watched as passers-by saluted each other. The gesture had replaced the lifting of a hat or the slight nod of acknowledgement.

  As they drove around Parliament Square, Armstrong looked hard at the Palace of Westminster, his place of work for nearly twenty years. He remembered his maiden speech, how nerves had caused him to speak far too quickly, so that the few Members who were in the House had no idea of what he was saying. He had in fact been arguing for an increase in the size of compensation payments to war widows, although it was to be another three years before his voice fell on ears that weren’t conveniently deaf.

  Armstrong also recalled the new Member for Harrow making his maiden speech in February 1919. The then Mr Mosley was only twenty-three, the youngest MP in the House, and he started his speech by quoting Chatham’s line concerning ‘the atrocious crime of being a young man’. Armstrong remembered wincing when Mosley had the gall to attack the Secretary of State for War, Winston Churchill, accusing him of lacking imagination. He had been impressed by Mosley’s confidence, but repelled by his obvious vanity and naked ambition.

  As they continued down the Embankment, Armstrong turned back to look at Big Ben. Although it was four o’clock, the clock’s hands were stuck at five past five. He mentioned it to Ted.

  ‘Rumour has it,’ said Ted, ‘that Mosley got it to stick there because in that position the hands look most like the lightning flash.’

  Armstrong let out a gentle laugh, more a wry expulsion of breath.

  ‘It wouldn’t surprise me,’ he said.

  ‘Although I had heard that he was hopping mad about it. You can just imagine him.’

  And Ted proceeded to imitate the Leader, his voice snarling and patrician, his teeth exposed like those of a savage hound.

  ‘Fascist states have clocks that WORK!’ he bellowed. ‘Does our friend Herr Hitler have even ONE non-functioning timepiece? NO, I say to you!’

  Armstrong laughed more heartily this time. Ted was a good mimic, and he didn’t doubt that Mosley would have had such a conversation.

  ‘So how long has it been stopped for?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, weeks – although there hasn’t been a mention of it in either Action or The Blackshit.’

  The Blackshit. It was a good name for it. How childish the nature of dictatorship that it should censor what was obvious and apparent. No doubt it reported that the entire country was bathed in sunshine every day and that nobody caught colds any more.

  They reached Whitechapel Road at quarter past six. They had tried ringing Mrs Craven, but the phone was out of order – ‘Another triumph for the efficiency of the fascist machine,’ Armstrong had said – so they decided to visit unannounced. The streets got progressively grimmer. Mosley had promised a programme of slum clearance, but that pledge – like so many others he had made when he had come to power – looked undelivered.

  What had been delivered were stones through every other shop window – the windows of those shops that were owned by Jews. Stars of David had been crudely painted on every
surface of these premises, along with anti-Semitic graffiti such as ‘Jews Go Home’, ‘Don’t Shop with Shylock’, ‘Only Traitors Buy from Yids’. This was Mosley’s heartland, the spiritual home of the Blackshirt, the place where fascism had first taken root.

  Armstrong and Ted drove in silence, both shocked by what they saw. This was racism in the raw, prejudice far more deep-seated and menacing than conversational antipathy. This was systemic, controlled. Although it had been happening all over Europe, Armstrong had never thought he would see it in London. As they drove on, they saw a couple of Blackshirts painting a Star of David on the back of an elderly Orthodox Jew’s coat. Armstrong wanted to get Ted to stop the car, jump out and pummel the two thugs to the ground, but he knew it would achieve nothing. The only way he could help that old man was by not getting caught, and by carrying out his mission.

  They drove slowly past the large villas that made up Victoria Park Road, a more genteel part of the East End north of Whitechapel. As Armstrong started looking at house numbers, he noticed a large black Vauxhall parked about fifty feet up the road. Ted was starting to slow down, anticipating that he would soon need to park.

  ‘Don’t stop!’ said Armstrong.

  ‘But I thought you wanted—’ said Ted.

  ‘Just keep going! But not too fast!’

  Ted shook his head and gently put his foot down. As they continued down the long straight road, Armstrong sank low in his seat.

  ‘What are you up to?’

  ‘The Vauxhall on the right – ten to one it’s full of secret police.’

  Armstrong looked up to see Ted glance in the direction of the car.

  ‘You’re not wrong,’ said Ted after a few seconds. ‘There were two men in the front seat, both wearing snap-brim hats. Gave me a foul look.’

  ‘Can I sit up?’

  Ted looked in the rear-view mirror and nodded.

  ‘Now what?’ he asked.

  ‘We’ve got to get rid of them,’ said Armstrong.

  ‘Yes, but how?’

  Armstrong smiled.

  ‘I’ve got an idea. Turn right up here.’

  ‘Into the park?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘But what are we going to do in the park? Sunbathe?’

  ‘Not in this uniform! No – I want you to go and find two or three of the most troublesome-looking scamps you can get your hands on. I want them to create a little diversion for us.’

  ‘Get them to do what?’

  ‘I want them to pelt that Vauxhall with stones, bricks, metal, abuse – anything they can get their hands on.’

  ‘But those men are bound to be armed!’

  ‘I doubt even they would actually shoot a gang of children,’ said Armstrong. ‘Run after them, certainly, but shoot them, I don’t think so.’

  Ted stopped the car.

  ‘And how are you going to convince these children that it’ll be worth their while risking their necks? Offer them a packet of Players?’

  ‘Better than that,’ said Armstrong, reaching into his trouser pocket. ‘They can have one of these each.’

  He passed Ted three five-pound notes.

  ‘For that,’ said Ted, ‘they’ll probably set light to the car.’

  ‘Suits me.’

  Forty-five minutes later, Armstrong and Ted were sitting in Ted’s car about thirty yards behind the black Vauxhall.

  ‘Are you sure they’re going to come?’ asked Armstrong.

  Ted threw his cigarette end out of the window.

  ‘Positive,’ he said. ‘Absolutely positive.’

  He produced the five-pound notes from his jacket pocket. All three had been torn in half.

  ‘Used to do the same trick in my reporting days,’ he said. ‘Never fails. I told the three rascals that they’d get the other halves if they turned up at the lido at eight o’clock.’

  ‘But we can’t guarantee that,’ said Armstrong.

  ‘I know,’ said Ted. ‘But they weren’t to know that.’

  Ted’s attitude offended Armstrong’s sense of fair play, but he knew that if Ted had simply given the lads the money up front they would never have seen them again.

  ‘Oh well,’ said Armstrong. ‘I suppose one day we might be able to let them know how important a job it really was.’

  Ted didn’t reply, because he was looking intently in his wing mirror.

  ‘Here they come,’ he said. ‘Just as the editor ordered.’

  Armstrong turned round.

  ‘I don’t know whether they frighten the French . . .’ he began.

  ‘. . . but by God they certainly frighten me,’ said Ted, finishing Wellington’s words.

  The three lads walked past them. Ted had certainly found the toughest-looking ruffians in the whole of the East End. Armstrong noticed that their clothes were filthy – one of them was even in barefoot.

  ‘Go on, boys,’ he whispered as the boys sauntered up the road.

  ‘Proper little gangsters, aren’t they?’ said Ted.

  ‘You certainly picked some great specimens.’

  ‘Here we go,’ said Ted. ‘Looks like they’re getting ready.’

  Armstrong watched the boys glance furtively up and down the street. They looked almost comically suspicious, but no matter. So long as they bought them just a couple of minutes, then they could appear as suspicious as their amateur criminality allowed.

  The taller of the boys reached into his trouser pocket and produced what looked like a piece of masonry. He flung it at the back window of the Vauxhall with all his might, causing the glass to shatter with a satisfyingly loud smash.

  ‘Good one!’ said Armstrong.

  Ted rubbed his hands. The other two boys followed suit, and proceeded to hurl all manner of indiscernible objects at the car. Within seconds, the two secret policemen had got out.

  ‘Excellent,’ said Armstrong. ‘They’re both out.’

  ‘Piss off, coppers!’ they heard one of the boys shout.

  Armstrong immediately turned to Ted.

  ‘You didn’t tell them they were secret policemen, did you?’

  ‘No, swear on my life – they must have worked it out for themselves.’

  By now the policemen were starting to chase after the boys, one of whom had the gumption to throw a missile back at his pursuers.

  ‘Brave lad!’ Ted exclaimed.

  But Armstrong was no longer watching the pursuit.

  ‘Come on! Let’s go!’

  Before Ted could react, Armstrong was already out of the car and walking swiftly up the road.

  With one eye on the road, Armstrong rapped firmly on the door of Craven’s house, desperately looking forward to the security of being indoors.

  He could discern a shadow approaching through the glass.

  ‘Who is it?’

  The voice was firm and clear.

  ‘We’re old friends of Jimmy’s,’ said Armstrong.

  ‘Old friends? Who exactly?’

  Armstrong paused. He wasn’t going to bellow his name out loud.

  ‘Old parliamentary friends,’ he said, hoping that would open the door.

  It didn’t.

  ‘What’re your names?’

  Armstrong bent down and lifted the flap of the letterbox.

  ‘Mrs Craven?’ he whispered through it.

  ‘What? Who are you?’

  ‘I’ve just come from the Isle of Man,’ he said. ‘I was with Jimmy when he died.’

  Silence.

  ‘Please, Mrs Craven,’ Armstrong implored. ‘It’s absolutely vital that we talk to you. I’ll tell you who I am when you let us in.’

  Silence, and then the noise of a bolt being slid back. Armstrong stood up and waited while the door slowly opened. A wide-eyed face looked them up and down.

  ‘But you’re . . . you’re a Blackshirt,’ said Mrs Craven.

  Armstrong could take no more of this. He couldn’t stay on the doorstep a second longer.

  ‘Isn’t everybody these days,’
he said with a reassuring smile, and with it gently barged in, quickly followed by Ted. The first thing he noticed when they entered the hall was a huge poster of Lenin which took up the whole of one wall.

  ‘Jimmy told me you were even more left-wing than he was,’ said Armstrong. ‘It appears he was right.’

  Mrs Craven eyed him suspiciously.

  ‘Who are you?’ she said, her voice stern. ‘What are you doing in my house?’

  Armstrong guessed that she was in her early forties, but she looked tired, very tired, which gave the impression of far more advanced years. She had evidently been doing a great deal of crying.

  ‘Mrs Craven, my name is James Armstrong. I was in the boat when Jimmy died.’

  Mrs Craven raised a hand to her mouth. What she did next took Armstrong aback. She hugged him, gripping him tightly.

  ‘You’re a bloody hero,’ she said, her voice starting to tremble. ‘Anybody who kills fascists is all right in my book.’

  ‘I’m so sorry about Jimmy,’ said Armstrong. ‘He was a good man, a very principled man.’

  Mrs Craven didn’t reply, but gripped Armstrong tighter and started to sob uncontrollably. Armstrong understood these tears, because he had wept them himself, when Mary had died. He felt like crying as well, but stopped himself. This was not the time to think about Mary and Philip. When all this was finished, then he would, but not now, not now.

  She insisted on making them a pot of a tea, and ten minutes later Armstrong and Ted found themselves sitting in the living room being served strong black tea in chipped mugs. The room was festooned with paraphernalia that signified the Cravens’ political loyalties.

  ‘In a way, Jimmy was a traitor,’ said Mrs Craven as she eased herself into a chair, which Armstrong noticed was surrounded by books and political pamphlets.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Craven,’ said Armstrong. ‘In what way?’

  ‘He sold out when he joined the Labour Party, stopped being a true believer like yours truly here.’

  Mrs Craven’s gaze led her guests’ eyes to the mantelpiece, upon which was a small bronze bust of Marx.

  ‘He was much more practical than me,’ she said. ‘Knew that the only way to really influence things was to get into Parliament. I saw that as compromise, and told him that the dialectic would not allow for it. I think Jimmy loved Westminster really, despite his reputation.’