So wrote Gerald Cooke, from Ashdene Cottage, and to us in teeming London, now cowering under what was virtually martial law, it was a queer picture. We had indeed wanted to think of Debenford as our private refuge in this nightmare world, even if there the seasons and the crops mattered more than patriotism; but it was a shock to learn that, while we shuddered in London, the country folk were taking the enemy to their hearts.
“But”, Gerald added, “there are moments when even we hang our heads. There was a bit of excitement when a picture of Hitler standing with the Chief Regent took the place of the Death of Nelson over the parlour mantelpiece at the Rose. We almost began to talk politics. Then you may remember that we lost five young men in the last war, two of them in the crew of a lightship. People tend to avoid their relatives. I suggested to the Vicar that we might add the five names to the 1914 memorial, but he coughed and changed the subject. Another unhappy reminder of the wider catastrophe is the presence in the village of young Paul Ebbotson. You may remember him, son of the blacksmith, who did so well at school and got a job in the Nigerian police. Now that’s all over, and he’s back as a farm labourer.
“Big changes are coming, no doubt. The signs are there for those who care to read them. For some weeks now Woodbridge police court has been attended by a German officer, sitting very erect beside the mild-mannered Gestapo fellow who haunts the neighbourhood; and yesterday he was actually given a place on the bench! Stonehaven nearly had a fit, but, as the chairman seemed to take it as a matter of course, he thought it best to say nothing. The news from Ipswich is more ominous still, for it is said that the City Council is entirely under the control (lightly exercised hitherto) of the military commandant. I wonder if this is typical of England as a whole? One never reads anything of these things in the papers.
“The judge came to Ipswich last week on circuit. He had an escort of Uhlans, which wasn’t very nice; in fact, there was something unpleasantly farcical about the whole business. General von So-and-So, who sat among the notabilities, must have twirled his moustaches most impatiently when all that business about oyer and terminer and our Sovereign Lord the King was being read. Very different from the People’s Courts! The biggest case in the calendar, according to the Eastern Daily News, was a complicated civil action about an unimportant right of way. How unreal it seems to be expensively arguing a matter like this, from ancient statutes and leading cases, when the very bases of our law are crumbling!
“Never mind. No-one can chase the swallows away before their time, and I don’t suppose the Germans will be pulling up the water-blobs above the mill-race. Come soon, as you both must be desperately in need of a change.”
“Well,” I said to Elizabeth, “shall we pay another visit to Debenford soon?”
“No,” she said. “Let’s wait till we know the worst. We might find it horribly changed—more than Gerald realizes, who lives there all the time. Or we might find it horribly the same, like a death mask. Let’s go to some place that doesn’t matter.”
She pinned the enormous yellow Press badge to her dress, and went off to submit an article to the Bureau of Censorship. That week-end we went to Brighton. We didn’t enjoy it at all; and we found that even the monstrous Pavilion must have been among the things we had loved, for we were very sorry to see that it had been turned into a German barracks.
On Saturday morning we saw Jack Dorman, of the Brisbane Star, sitting on the beach throwing pebbles at a bottle. “Who does that stand for?” I asked. “Mr. H. or Sir J.N.?” He said, neither. It stood for the Unholy Optimists, who succeeded only in making the world seem a blacker place than ever. Asked to explain, he drew out a little notebook. “Look,” he said, “I am making a collection of Unholy Optimisms—prominent people who by their statements publicly made since the arrival of German troops show that they are coldly and deliberately deceiving themselves. If the New Statesman hadn’t been suppressed it might have published them with the title ‘This Earth, this Gau, this England’.”
It was indeed an extraordinary collection. Most of the people quoted are now dead—some “shot while attempting to escape”—they were none of them time-servers, and all of them, surely, must have repented of what they said. It would not be fair, therefore, to name them, but I think it should be put on record that a bishop, for instance, in Westminster Abbey described Hitler as “the Reformation ideal of a Christian prince”, and that the proprietor of a great newspaper remarked “How fortunate and right it is that the Führer admires the English character!” It was a progressive member of the New English Art Club who said, “National Socialism is the disciplined renascence of wonder,” and a famous headmaster who assured parents that Hitler’s Ordenburgen were but a flattering translation into a German idiom of the English public school. There was Nordic Iron, the fatuous poem done in the manner, but not with the intent, of The Waste Land, and there was the elder statesman’s advice to “show the Germans something worth imitating”. A song sung by a top-of-the-bill comedian had a chorus which went “Belinda is now quite the Belle of Berlin, and Lotte’s the Lily of London”; and the public orator at a university which was admitting Goebbels to an honorary degree addressed him with the words “Egregie doctor, mores instrue, et nostra tecum pectora in Valhallam trahe”.
All this was perpetrated while German troops, at vantage points throughout the three kingdoms, were quietly but relentlessly preparing to press down the heel. It was perpetrated by men who were trapped, but were too vain to know it—who would never believe that the values they had made their own could be entirely falsified by brute force, and preferred to persuade themselves that God and the snail were still somehow where they ought to be. They were not cowards but fools.
All three of us picked up the largest stone we could find, and hurled it at the bottle. It splintered into fragments. A Prussian bugle call sounded from the Royal Pavilion. Though no-one in Brighton knew it, it was ushering in Der Tag, the twenty-four hours in which the heel was actually to be pressed down, in good earnest.
… Far away in Whitechapel there was one, Isaac Cohen, who was no Unholy Optimist. He made no attempt to deceive himself, and he foresaw, as clearly as though it had already begun to happen, what was in store for his race, his class, and, ultimately, his adopted country. Millions of others foresaw all this too, and many of his race, following the despairing example of their brethren in all the desecrated capitals, from Paris to Vienna, put an end to themselves and their families. Others shut their eyes and ears and tried to forget. Isaac Cohen did neither of these things. He dwelt on the future, by night as well as by day, until his ears rang with the cries of future martyrs and he saw the desolation of a yet uncreated ghetto. As with a drunkard, his mental vision contracted as it sharpened; he saw the Terror with frightful clarity, but round it there was mist and vagueness. Only out of this darkness loomed the shadowy figure of a man, with little pig’s eyes, and a small moustache, and a lock of lank hair plastered to his forehead. This figure, vague as it was, was yet essential to terrible sharp vision in the centre. Every night Isaac Cohen became more certain that one had to remove the figure for the vision to soften, lose definition, and, at last, break down and disappear. Only destroy the figure …
One day, in a Lyons shop on the Mile End Road, Isaac Cohen fell into conversation with a Gentile, a German who confessed to being a Social Democrat. He was a sympathetic fellow, this German, and it was not long before Isaac Cohen was staggering out his nightmare into friendly ears. There was much earnest conversation between the two, the one man whispering wildly, the other calming him, directing his thoughts, narrowing his vision once again. A shiny black object changed hands before the interview was over.
There was no sleep for Isaac Cohen the next three nights. His brain was racing; no longer was the evil figure haunting the periphery of his mind, it was gaining definition, moving into the centre, marching boldly up to a dais in the midst of an applauding multitude. And it became thinner and thinner until it was like a thread—the threa
d upon which alone that other fearful vision depended.…
When the bugle sounded we stopped the silly game of throwing stones, and climbed back on to the promenade. I bought an evening paper. “Hell!” I said. “Mr. H. has decided to attend that youth parade in London to-morrow morning, and he may make a speech. Dorman, you and I will have to go back. Another week-end ruined!”
One could not ignore Hitler’s speeches. He made them seldom, and when he did we hung on his words and lost no opportunity, within the strict limits of the censorship, of “interpreting” them. Sometimes we might add: “The Prime Minister also spoke”.
But at the seaside, even in the vulgar pullulation of Brighton, the Führer seemed somehow remote. Politics never had much to do with groins and pebbles and seaweed, and the sun glared too fiercely on the Evening Standard for it to be read with comfort. We picked our way along an inert line of deck-chairs, and wondered at those comfortable people whose lives were still sufficiently shored up by gilt-edged securities or sheltered jobs that they could gaze placidly into the blue. They were Canutes who did not even notice the sea.
But for the chance that Hitler would speak at it I should have been glad to give the Young Englander parade a miss. It takes time to get inured to the rites of Moloch, and I preferred the disbanded Boy Scouts. Moreover, I had no desire to be present at the desecration of Lord’s cricket ground. I felt deeply for the head groundsman, who a week before had walked away and had never been heard of since.
Next morning was fresh and sunlit—just the morning, had it been a Saturday, for the opening day of Middlesex v. Surrey. But the scene was cruelly different. The sacred pavilion was full of strange uniforms, and the ring of spectators was glum and silent. A brass band played discordantly. Only the turf remained inviolate; but round it were ranged, ready for marching, the grim imported Hitler Youth, and our own poor lads, in their new jackboots and white peaked caps. Their horrible banners, red and black, moved in the gentle breeze.
Dorman and I gazed miserably at the green island, so soon to be submerged. It was poignantly symbolic. For a moment the ghosts, Francis Thompson’s, appeared, and the run-stealers flickered to and fro. But then the music crashed out, and two flesh-and-blood figures moved into that holy place. One was that poor, aged Duke of Mercia who somehow had consented to be made Lord President of the Council and Chief Regent, representative of the vacant Throne. I recalled, with a slight shock, that not many years ago he had been proud to be President of the M.C.C. Perhaps his old eyes did not see what we saw, and he thought he was strolling about at lunch-time during the Eton and Harrow match. But now beside him stalked Herr Hitler.
Two figures, then, alone in that great green expanse. No, there were three, for a little dark man appeared out of the crowd, running, gesticulating, shouting. Hitler stood still; the old Duke stumbled on into his dreams. The man was waving something, it was a gun. He fired twice, and Adolf Hitler rolled heavily on to the turf.
In the next few minutes was concentrated the first stunning impact of the long-delayed blow which put an end to the liberties and happiness of England. It was an execution, carried out with swiftness, precision and a certain solemnity.
The Black Guards behind Hitler shot the assailant dead. A large force of Brown Shirts appeared from nowhere, and formed a square round the pitch, facing the spectators with levelled revolvers. Reichswehr men occupied the pavilion, where machine guns were seen trained from the scoring box. A bevy of nurses fluttered over the Führer’s inert body, and bore it off to a waiting ambulance. The leader of the Hitler Youth stepped in front of the young aristocrat who was supposed to be commanding the Young Englanders, and briskly ordered them to march off the field. Messengers sped to and fro, as though on appointed errands.
I watched in dumb amazement. It was like being at the Aldershot Tattoo, except that it was disconcerting to be looking down the barrel of a Brownshirt’s revolver. We were all standing up, but a peremptory voice told us to sit down again. Göring was at the microphone, and for a silly moment I likened him to a headmaster who was at last about to punish the whole school. Then I reflected that he had been named as Hitler’s successor.
His guttural English throbbed across the arena as the loudspeakers, pointing different ways, caught up the words, “A terrible outrage has been committed,” they boomed. “A cowardly attempt has been made on the life of our Führer. We cannot tell yet whether he has been mortally wounded. The crime must be avenged. The German nation assumes this duty. The necessary measures will be taken.”
Is it true that the Field-Marshal glanced at a piece of paper in his hand to make sure that he got his English sentences right? I was too scared to notice. At any rate, it would only have been the last touch of absurdity in this gigantic and hideous charade.
The band struck up something like a dead march, and the German occupants of the tribune began to move out across the green space, empty now except for the huddled body of Isaac Cohen. The British notabilities hesitated, and at length, led by the Prime Minister, retired into the interior of the pavilion. Goebbels, as he passed, savagely kicked the corpse of the Jew. The Duke was left alone. Sublime in his grey top-hat, he stumbled off in the wrong direction, and was hustled out at the Nursery End by a party of Stormtroopers. The band played “Deutschland über Alles” and the “Horst Wessel Lied”, and omitted to play “God Save the King”.
“Keep your seats.” It was Himmler now at the microphone. “No-one may leave before examination by the authorities.” The Hitler Youth, without the least hesitation, assumed the task of shepherding the great crowd, one by one, through only four exits, where each individual was questioned at length by a Gestapo man. The news soon spread that there was a fleet of black marias outside to take those the Nazis disliked to gaol.
A good quarter of Britain’s well-known figures were present on the ground—trapped. Judges, bishops, generals—for all we knew the prisons were ready to snap up any of them. It was very different from that party at Bush House, with its champagne and Wagner. The sun beat down, and, rank on rank, the people sat nearly motionless, waiting to be marshalled to the exits by fourteen-year-old boys.
No special consideration was shown to the Press. We wanted to rush off and telephone our stories, but Dr. Schultz appeared and distributed a typewritten statement which announced that no messages for oversea would be accepted that day beyond the official communiqué which had already been transmitted.
What was in that communiqué? We were not told. We did not even know whether Hitler was dead. We did not know whether to wish he were. We could only guess at what was happening outside in London, our London, beyond the tall houses of St. John’s Wood.
There was no panic. That is to say, people did not brave the machine guns and make a rush to the turnstiles. They waited, and either wept or sat quite motionless.
After a while the microphones announced that the Führer, by the intervention of Providence, had not been killed but only wounded in the arm. A sibilant murmur came up from the crowd. I suppose they were muttering to each other “A frame-up”, and then telling each other “Hush!” I thought at once of Elmer Rice’s Judgement Day.
I saw my old friend von Holtz, breathing rather heavily, with set face. I could not resist a feeble jest. “Surely, this is the most notable event of the London season,” I said; but he looked away without answering.
They were a long time coming to the row on which I was sitting. It was blazing noon, and one felt slightly sick, and the grass looked so green with, in the middle of it, the one dark crumpled figure that no-one seemed to clear away. For a moment I dropped off to sleep, and woke expecting to hear the click of the ball on the bat and a polite murmur of “Well played, sir.”
Dorman, who was sitting beside me, was calmly surveying the scene with a pair of field-glasses. He turned them here and there, sweeping across the sea of unhappy faces, until they lighted upon the crumpled solitary object in the middle of the field. “Looks like a Jew,” he muttered, and then he turn
ed to me. “You know, Fenton,” he said, somewhat excitedly, “when they publish the name and circumstances of that poor wretch I’m going to do a little detective work on my own. I should like to know how he got hold of that revolver in these days—and whether he was the sort of man who could distinguish live cartridges from blank ones.” “Shut up, you fool,” I whispered. “You can’t play Lord Peter Wimsey here.” I glanced round. There, behind us, sat the comfortable Dr. Schultz, blinking through his spectacles like a West Country rector at the Oxford and Cambridge match. He made no sign.
“Row C 16, please.” It was our turn. Two hours after the process had begun there must still have been three-fourths of the crowd left waiting. Sixteen of us trooped meekly to the designated exit I bade farewell to Dorman.
“Charles Arthur Fenton,” repeated the Gestapo man seated at the table, and in a moment an underling had turned up my name in an enormous book. “So! Correspondent of the Wellington Courier. Messages unfriendly in tone. Contacts with the late Stephen Mallory. Well, Mr. Fenton, I don’t think I need detain you—now; but you know how to be careful, don’t you?”
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