The Leader

by Guy Walters

  An official approached them and bowed deeply.

  ‘If your Royal Highnesses are ready, it is now time to depart.’

  The King and Queen stepped out into the courtyard, and walked slowly to the carriage. The Queen got into the carriage first, and the King, having ensured that his wife was safely on board, walked round to the other side and climbed into it a little unsteadily. As soon as the door had shut behind him, he received another rebuke from his wife.

  ‘David! Sort yourself out!’

  The coach pulled away jerkily.

  ‘This thing is so damn uncomfortable,’ said the Queen. ‘Why couldn’t we have used a car?’

  ‘But darling, cars are for—’

  ‘For treaties,’ the Queen snapped. ‘Yes, yes, I know. Come on, David, it’s time to wave.’

  * * *

  The cell door slammed open. They had heard much commotion and arguing outside, as well as the occasional sound of a pistol shot, and Armstrong had expected secret policemen to walk in. Instead it was the welcome figure of Ted.

  ‘Ted!’ Armstrong shouted. ‘Get us out of here!’

  Ted was accompanied by three army officers, all of whom looked down at the corpses on the floor.

  ‘Go and find some keys,’ Ted ordered them. ‘Christ almighty, what happened here?’

  ‘Ousby shot Alec before shooting himself,’ Lucy replied.

  ‘Never mind that,’ said Armstrong. ‘How’s it going out there?’

  ‘Clifford tells me he’s heard of some resistance, but so far our men are making a clean sweep of it. But there is a big problem, James.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The seating plan,’ said Ted. ‘It’s been changed.’

  ‘Changed? Changed how?’

  ‘They’ve swapped round the congregation in the choir. Lady Mosley wanted a better view, apparently.’

  ‘You’re joking,’ said Armstrong. ‘You’ve got to be.’

  He could tell by Ted’s expression that he was not.

  ‘This is a fucking disaster,’ said Armstrong. ‘So who’s got the bomb now?’

  Ted paused.

  ‘Who?’ Armstrong shouted.

  ‘Roosevelt,’ said Ted.

  Silence. The occupants of the room looked at each other, appalled. They all knew that killing the American president would have an even worse outcome than leaving the Blackshirts in place.

  One of the officers brought in a large bunch of keys. It took what felt like hours for him to find the right key.

  ‘Come on, man, come on!’ Armstrong barked.

  ‘Nearly there, sir,’ said the officer. ‘Ah, this is it!’

  Armstrong felt the pressure around his wrists suddenly diminish as the cuffs were removed.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ he said, putting his head in his hands.

  ‘What can we do?’ asked Ted.

  ‘We’ve got to stop Mosley,’ said Armstrong, looking up. ‘It’s the only way.’

  ‘Stop Mosley?’ asked Ted.

  ‘That’s right – if we manage to kill him before he gets into the Abbey, then we’ll fulfil our original goal as well as averting a catastrophe.’

  Armstrong looked at his watch. It was nearly quarter to eleven.

  ‘We should be able to get there in five minutes,’ he said. ‘Which might mean that we can get Mosley before he goes inside. We’ve got to try.’

  They drove in the same van that had taken Armstrong and Lucy away. Armstrong took the wheel, and negotiated the crowds and the narrow streets as deftly as possible.

  ‘This is impossible!’ Ted cried above the sound of the engine.

  ‘We’ll do it,’ said Armstrong. ‘Don’t worry.’

  ‘This should help,’ said Lucy, pushing a small button in the centre of the dashboard.

  Armstrong and Ted started as the deafening noise of a police siren came from the roof.

  ‘Thank you,’ Armstrong shouted above the din.

  ‘I don’t know how you would manage without me,’ said Lucy.

  They pulled up a hundred yards or so from the west door of the Abbey. The crowds made any further progress in the van impossible.

  ‘Let’s get out!’ shouted Armstrong.

  The three of them jostled and barged their way through the crowd. Soon they could hear chanting. The words were indistinct at first, but within a few seconds they became apparent.

  ‘Mosley! Mosley! MOSLEY!’

  The chant was loud, but it didn’t sound as though it had any conviction. Sullen, thought Armstrong, it sounded sullen.

  ‘He’s not yet in the Abbey!’ Armstrong shouted.

  He turned to look at the others, but they were not with him, had been trapped by the crowd. Never mind that, he told himself, keep going.

  Armstrong could hear his own breath as he ran. It was like wearing a gas mask, it was like being back in France. Charging across no man’s land, dealing with the panic, with the terror, the horror of watching death exploding all around you. All you ever wanted to do was stop, but you had to keep going, otherwise you would be killed for sure.

  And then he saw the explosion at Le Quinque Rue. It was there, right there in front of him, showering the crowds in limbs and blood. Dizziness. Terrible dizziness. Then it would be the legs, and when they went, he would be on the ground. And when he was on the ground, then the screaming would start.

  Except he wasn’t on the ground. His legs were weak, but he was still stumbling forward, heading towards the barriers that separated the crowd from the road,

  ‘MOSLEY!’

  His quarry couldn’t have been more than fifty feet away. All he needed to do was push through, but he lacked the strength. Terrible dizziness, terrible weariness. Keep going, he urged himself, keep going, don’t give in to it. If you are moving, you are doing well. You are not going to collapse. You are going to win through, beat the shellshock, do as Mary told you. Deep breath, pause, deep breath, pause, deep breath. Take in the world around you, not the world inside your head. The explosion is not there, the limbs are not there. This is two decades later, you are not back there any more, because you have beaten that and it is gone. Never again will you be back there.

  ‘Out of my way!’ he screamed. ‘Out of my way!’

  He charged onwards, and the crowd opened up for him. Nobody was going to stop him. He was like that thief on the Underground, taking advantage of surprise and collective inaction. There was a barrier in front of him, a barrier that he vaulted.

  Any second now he expected a bullet, but none came. In front of him was an open-top horse-drawn carriage, inside which were the unmistakable figures of the Leader and his wife. And then his view was blocked, obscured by a figure wearing a Blackshirt uniform. Armstrong smashed a well-aimed fist into the man’s face and kept advancing, his view of his target restored.

  He didn’t know it, but the crowd had gone silent. What was this they were watching? Was it a joke? A stunt? It was a man charging towards the Leader. The one person who reacted faster than any of them was the Leader himself, who had leaped out of the carriage, rightly fearing that he was the target of a crazed attack.

  ‘Stop that man!’ Armstrong could hear him shouting. ‘Stop that man!’

  But no one came to stop him. This was theatre, you couldn’t stop it. And more importantly, there was no one willing to do so.

  Armstrong kept going. There was no way Mosley was going to outrun him; the man had a limp. But the Leader had a head start, and he was making towards a mounted guardsman. Armstrong saw him draw his ceremonial sword and hack at the booted leg of the soldier, causing him to fall off the horse in agony. Within seconds, Mosley was astride the animal and geeing it to go.

  ‘Captain Armstrong!’

  Who was that?

  ‘Captain Armstrong! Here! Take my mount!’

  The man was wearing the uniform of a lieutenant-colonel. This had to be Huw Merriman, the leader of the arrest party.

  Armstrong put his left foot in the stirrup and swung himself up on
to the horse.

  ‘Whatever you do,’ he shouted down to Merriman, ‘do not allow the Coronation to go ahead! And get Roosevelt out of there!’

  Merriman looked puzzled.

  ‘Just do as I bloody say!’

  ‘Yes, sir!’ Merriman replied. ‘And have this, sir!’

  The officer passed Armstrong his sword. He would have preferred a gun, but this was the best he could hope for.

  A horse. How do you ride a horse? He hadn’t ridden one in ages. He kicked his heels into the animal’s flanks and shot forward. He saw Mosley heading up to the north side of the Abbey, going east along Parliament Square, weaving between ranks of mounted troops. Armstrong was aware of a silent crowd watching from behind the barriers – even the policemen were just staring. His horse was following now, taking the same course as Mosley’s.

  Armstrong was not aware of it, but one of Ousby’s secret policemen was levelling a pistol at his back. The man squeezed the trigger, but before he could depress it completely, a round passed straight through his neck, fired by a soldier from the London Regiment. It was only at this point that several members of the crowd started to scream, a scream that soon escalated into panic.

  * * *

  Armstrong was gaining on Mosley’s horse. The Leader was bearing left, heading north towards Whitehall. Number 10, thought Armstrong, he was aiming for Number 10. Armstrong couldn’t see the panic that was developing behind him, but the infection was spreading rapidly, causing the crowd to burst free of its barriers, overwhelming the policemen.

  They were cantering up Whitehall now, and then Mosley turned left into King Charles Street, sending the crowds fleeing as his horse leaped the barriers. Armstrong didn’t fancy his chances at taking a jump, but he knew that he had no choice. He couldn’t help but briefly shut his eyes as he sped towards the barrier.

  ‘Come on!’ he shouted at the horse, and then he was airborne for what seemed like far too long. He was about to fall off, there was no doubt about it, but then they landed, the horse sliding as it did so, but retaining its footing and its rider.

  The street was nearly empty, and Mosley was cantering down its centre. Armstrong knew that it ended in some steps, so why had Mosley chosen this route? As soon as the thought had crossed his mind, he saw Mosley pull hard on his horse’s reins and then dismount. Armstrong surged forward, watching as Mosley half limped, half ran down the steps.

  Armstrong pulled up and dismounted. In the few seconds it took to do so, he lost sight of Mosley. He ran down the steps and looked around. Where had he gone? Ahead of him was some dead ground, and beyond that the back of the crowd that was lining the east side of Horse Guards. The panic had not infected that part of the crowd yet, because their attention was focused on the imminent arrival of the state carriage. From his viewpoint, Armstrong could see the carriage approaching from the north. It would not get much further, he thought. The Coronation would certainly be stopped, but where was Mosley?

  That door. He had never noticed it before. A low wooden door set into the base of the Foreign Office. It was ajar; he had to have gone in there. Armstrong ran forward and kicked open the door, sending it crashing back into the wall. Inside it was dark, so Armstrong entered slowly, allowing his eyes to grow accustomed to the change in light.

  A long, dim corridor extended in front of him. Where was Mosley? Holding the sword in front of him, Armstrong edged slowly forward, priming himself for a sudden assault. None came. He strained his ears for a sound, but there was only silence. Had he come the wrong way? Had Mosley in fact disappeared into the crowd? No – that was not possible, there would have been a commotion.

  A distant clanging, a metallic reverberation. A door being slammed? Up ahead, the corridor turned left. Slowly, almost ridiculously so, Armstrong continued. He sprang round the corner, sword at the ready, only to be greeted by another corridor. He walked a little quicker now, only allowing himself brief glances at the signs on the doors he passed. Signals. Laundry. Air Conditioning.

  Of course. He was in the war rooms, the bunker that was to be used by the Cabinet in the event of London being bombed. Shit. This place was a bloody maze – he would never be able to find Mosley in here. There was an alternative: he could simply go back to the entrance and seal it off, but that would assume there wasn’t another exit. No, he would have to find him.

  For the next five minutes, Armstrong made his way along the corridors with a mounting sense of fear. He expected a repeat of his shellshock, but none came. Perhaps it had gone for good; perhaps he had finally beaten it.

  More rooms passed. BBC Broadcast Room. Generator. Chief of Imperial General Staff. It was good to see that the BBC still existed somewhere, thought Armstrong.

  ‘Good morning, Captain Armstrong.’

  Armstrong froze. The voice had come from behind him. It was that voice, that hectoring voice whose cadences had dominated the airwaves and newsreels for so long. Mosley.

  Armstrong turned to see the Leader. He was standing side on, the tip of his sword resting on the floor. His face was dimly illuminated by a single yellow bulb above his head.

  ‘I could have killed you just now,’ said Mosley, ‘but I wanted to allow you to have a decent crack.’

  I’d love to have a crack at him. The conversation in the steam room with Alec – it suddenly came back to him, sending a chill down his spine. Mosley was a good swordsman, a very good swordsman. Runner-up in the British championships, no less.

  Armstrong didn’t reply, but readied himself for an onslaught. He lifted his sword and held it at forty-five degrees. Mosley did likewise, and then they paused, the tips of their blades hovering around each other with expectation. Armstrong had no wish for this sword fight, not only because he feared for his own safety, but also because he wanted to keep Mosley alive.

  Mosley lunged first, but it was a dummy, merely a twitch to test his opponent’s reactions. Armstrong attempted to knock the blade away, but met only with thin air. Mosely grabbed his opportunity and thrust forward, but Armstrong managed to recover from his error and twisted his torso away from the incoming point. This was going to be tough, he thought, perhaps too tough.

  Once more, Armstrong tried to strike Mosley’s blade, but it had already disappeared, pulled back rapidly only to come forward again in a swiping motion aimed at Armstrong’s crown. He ducked, and heard the swish of steel pass inches above his head. He attempted to spear Mosley’s left foot in response, but the foot moved back almost balletically,

  Quick, back up, away from the crouch. Mosley was forcing him back now, towards the end of the corridor. Their blades were striking together, the force from the blows vibrating all the way down the steel shaft and into the handle. This was going badly, thought Armstrong, there was no way he was going to be able to beat him.

  ‘Mosley!’ he shouted. ‘One thing you should know!’

  ‘Oh yes?’ the Leader snarled as he thrust forward.

  ‘You’ve already lost!’

  Not a long pause, but a pause nevertheless, enough to give Armstrong the opportunity to force Mosley back down what was now a piste.

  ‘Ridiculous!’ Mosley shouted.

  ‘My troops have already taken control of much of your apparatus,’ said Armstrong. ‘Sir Roger Ousby is dead, and even now the army is ensuring that the Coronation does not go ahead.’

  ‘Rubbish!’

  ‘It’s not . . . I assure you.’

  ‘You’re lying!’

  ‘I’m not,’ Armstrong shouted, forcing himself forward ever harder. He noticed that Mosley’s eyes were beginning to bulge out of his head, a mannerism that Armstrong had seen often both in Parliament and on the newsreels. It meant that the man was losing his temper, making him charge furiously as he was doing now.

  ‘That is not possible!’ Mosley screamed, punctuating each word with a thrust or a swipe.

  Armstrong held his cool, waiting for a chink. It would come soon, he knew it. Mosley was so angry that he had lost his swordsman’s discipline
.

  ‘You . . . are a liar!’

  And then it came, a split second in which Mosley’s chest was exposed. He had lunged forward angrily, terrifyingly, but Armstrong had sidestepped and brought the tip of his blade up to Mosley’s heart.

  ‘Drop your sword,’ Armstrong said coolly.

  ‘Never,’ said Mosley. ‘You’ll have to kill me before I’d do that!’

  ‘Drop it!’

  ‘No!’

  ‘In that case, I’ve got another surprise for you,’ said Armstrong.

  Mosley flashed his familiar smile. In the dim light, it looked demonic.

  ‘You’re full of them!’ he quipped.

  Armstrong pushed his sword into Mosley’s chest, stopping short of drawing blood.

  ‘Sir Roger Ousby was a Communist agent,’ he said. ‘He was using the secret police to seize control in order to allow Moscow to take over.’

  Mosley was speechless.

  ‘That’s right, Moscow. Ousby was in league with the Russians who want you dead. I, on the other hand, want to keep you alive. I want you tried in the courts, want you to face decent British justice, not the joke that you’ve turned it into.’

  ‘What? This is –’

  ‘How else do you think I have managed to stay on the run for so long? How else do you think I managed to escape from the Tower? Ousby! He was using me too, using my resistance movement as a cover!’

  ‘This is–’

  ‘That’s what I thought, but it’s true. Now put down your sword.’

  Mosley did not move.

  ‘Down!’

  ‘Kill me!’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because,’ said Armstrong, ‘unlike you, I don’t believe in summary executions.’

  Mosley paused. Armstrong thought that he might have to kill him, find himself forced into obeying Mosley’s will, even if that resulted in the Leader’s own death.